


a change in profession

by kryze



Series: king's collar [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), White Collar
Genre: BAMF Eggsy, BAMF Roxy, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Deviates From Canon, FBI, Kingsman!Neal, M/M, Post V-Day, WIP, pretty slow burn?, probably contains spoilers, recruits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-20 03:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4771844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryze/pseuds/kryze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ex-con Neal Caffrey stumbles across an opportunity to get out of being the FBI's criminal consultant and takes it with both hands.</p><p>In other words, he gets recruited by a young man with a strange name to be a part of another spy organisation. Except this one's top-secret: underground headquarters, cryptic codenames, airtight confidentiality contracts and all that jazz.</p><p>Just the way he likes it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. offer

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, post v-day and sudden appearance of a USHQ...

On the 17th of July, a CI under the jurisdiction of the FBI is approached by a young man in a tailored pinstriped suit.

 

* * *

 

“Is there a Neal Caffrey here?” A confident, British-accented rang through the bullpen.

 

The man in question whipped up from the papers that he’d fallen asleep on, blue eyes wide. Everyone’s eyes turned slowly towards him, non-verbally directing the young man to the infamous forger-slash-fence-slash-con himself. Neal leaned back non-threateningly in his chair, flashing the boy a charming smile. “Neal Caffrey speaking. What can I do for you?”

 

The boy flashed an equally charming smile back. “I’d like to speak with you, Mr Caffrey. I have a… let’s call it a ‘proposal’, that you may be interested in.”

 

Neal visibly perked up at the sound of a deal, gracefully getting to his feet. A cursory glance at Peter’s office revealed the senior agent watching the scene very, very carefully- nothing new. What _was_  new though, was Hughes standing authoritatively behind Peter’s glass walls, eyes burning a hole through Neal. Clearly, both of them had no idea what the boy was here for, but also clearly weren’t willing to interrupt him.

 

Interesting.

 

“And _why_ should I give you the time of day, Mr…?” Neal deliberated, knowing that he’d regret it if he didn't at least listen to what the boy had to say, if only to further infuriate Peter and Hughes. The boy somehow had more pull than the both of them.

 

“If you don’t like what I have to say, all you have to do is sign an agreement and you’ll never hear from me again. If you do, however… then know that I can give you a better life.”

 

Neal took a second to pretend to think it over, looking almost frantically for signs of a deception, but found himself unable to decipher any. Even so, it didn’t escape his notice that the boy had neatly avoided the question of his name- suspicious behaviour if he’d ever seen it.

 

“Well,” Neal smiled magnanimously, having come to a decision, “lead the way.”  

 

* * *

 

Eggsy strode confidently into one of the FBI’s conference rooms, thanking the female agent at the door with a kind smile and a gentle dismissal. He turned back to the man that he was currently dead-set on recruiting.

 

“Neal Caffrey.” He stated.

 

“Well. It appears you know who I am, Mr…?” Neal tried again to get his name. Eggsy allowed the corners of his mouth to turn up slightly in a smirk. 

 

“Call me Eggsy, please.”

 

“Of course… Eggsy.” The ex-con hesitated over his name, rolling it over his tongue unfamiliarly. It rather amused Eggsy that he chose not to say anything about it, and he found himself respecting the man for realising that the boy in the bespoke suit could get him out of a life spent in the FBI; one infused with suspicion and distrust so long as his name was Neal Caffrey.

 

“So,” the younger man began conversationally, “bond forgery, document forgery, art theft, jewel theft, money laundering and… carrier pigeons, it appears.” Eggsy was well-versed in reading tells, and he knew Caffrey had recoiled internally to the blatant list of his crimes, even as a charismatic smirk painted itself onto his visage. “All alleged, except for the bond forgery.”

 

Eggsy returned the smirk with one of his own, the one that said _I know something that you don’t_. Caffrey looked like he knew it too, a hint of fear jumping out in his unsettlingly bright eyes before receding back behind the cool, blue veneer.

 

“So,” Caffrey imitated him, smoothly changing the subject, “what exactly are you here to offer me?”

 

“A job.”

 

“A job?” His eyebrows cocked in surprise. “Who on God’s green earth wants to hire an _ex-con_?”

 

Eggsy just gave him an enigmatic smile. “Guess you’ll just have to find out.” He handed over an cream-coloured business card with a single phone number inscribed on it, no names or addresses. Neal took it with two fingers and held it up to the light, looking for any hidden devices or messages on it. Eggsy watched him, eyes laughing merrily. “You’ll not find anything underhanded hidden on it, Mr Caffrey. It’s just a number.”

 

Neal stopped inspecting the card, turning his wide blue eyes back on the young man in the tailored suit. He nodded, tucking the card away, safe inside the folds of his suit.

 

“We look forward to your response, Mr Caffrey. Good day.”

 

* * *

  

Neal called the number. “Hello, customer service. How may I help you?” A peppy female voice answered the phone.

 

“…uh. It’s Neal. Neal Caffrey? Criminal consultant for the FBI. A man- Eggsy?- approached me today and said that he wanted to offer me a job.”

 

There was a slight pause and then- “Thank you for your continued service. We hope to see you again soon.”

 

“What was it?” Mozzie asked curiously, putting down his glass of wine in favour of asking his friend what happened on the line.

 

Neal looked vaguely confused for a second, “Customer service, Moz. Must’ve been a scam.”

 

“What did they say?”

 

“Asked how she could help me and when I replied, she thanked me for my continued service and said that they hoped to… see me again soon.”

 

“Ah ha!” Moz held up a finger in a eureka moment. “It was a code!”

 

“Yeah, I got that now.” Neal rolled his eyes.

 

“So what next?”

 

“I dunno, Moz, I dunno.”

 

* * *

 

Not even ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

 

“Expecting anyone?” Moz muttered, his hands moving deftly to cover up any plans about the treasure and their daring escape from wandering eyes.

 

“Nope, and that’s what’s bothering me now.” Neal murmured in reply.

 

“Coming!” He opened the door, plastering a smile on for whoever came knocking at 11 at night, and there stood Eggsy, pinstriped suit and all.

 

“Oh who’s this, _mon frère_?” “Hello, I’m Eggsy.” The man stepped forward to introduce himself, switching his umbrella to his left hand in a gentlemanly fashion, offering his right to shake. Moz accepted it, holding on for slightly longer than socially acceptable. Neal knew he was probably checking for calluses that would indicate anything significant about Eggsy.

 

“This is my friend, Mozzie.”

 

“Pleasure to meet you, Mozzie.”

 

“Pleasure’s mine, O’Suit.”

 

Eggsy laughed, a genuine smile blooming on his face, displaying a pair of dimples around his mouth. “I can assure you, Mozzie, I am no government agent, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

Moz took a closer look at the guy and noted down the suit draped over his body that looked tailored within an inch of its life. “ _Au contraire_ , a Suit would never be able to afford something as high-quality as this.” He ran a finger along the seam of the boy’s jacket approvingly.

 

“Exactly.” Eggsy gifted the small bald man an approving beam. “Clearly you know a thing or two about suits." Both Eggsy and Mozzie looked pleased at that. "I’ve come to take Neal for a little while, we have a job he might be interested in. First though, I do need you to sign something for me.”

 

They led him over to their kitchen table, making sure not to make any movements to arouse suspicion about the documents scattered haphazardly over it. A cream-coloured paper- probably made of the same stock as the business card- was placed in front of Mozzie; a contract of silence. Neal skimmed over it from over his friend’s shoulder; it looked like whoever Eggsy worked for took secrecy to a whole new level. The shameless threats clearly outlined against Mozzie, should he ever breach security concerning who Eggsy was and divulged any information about him whatsoever, were quite brutal. Mozzie looked like he appreciated it though, and looked to Eggsy with a new respect. He whipped out a pen and signed his name with a flourish, handing it back to the young man.

 

“Make sure he comes back in one piece. If you’re planning on doing anything nefarious, I know people in _very_ high places, Mr Not-Suit!”

 

Eggsy gazed at him with reassuring cerulean eyes. “I promise, we’re not planning anything nefarious. Expect a call in a few days though, we might have a job for you too.”

 

And that was that. Neal was Eggsy’s for however long he wanted him.

 

* * *

 

"So what are we going to do about the anklet?" Neal asked, unnecessarily gesturing at the black device adorning his lower calf. 

 

"Don't even worry about it," Eggsy replied mischievously, "a friend of mine has already scrambled the signal, so the FBI have no idea where our HQ is. We plan to keep it that way."

 

Neal inclined his head. "And I'm guessing you guys are used to getting what you want."

 

"Oh yes," the younger man laughed gaily, throwing his head back in amusement.

 

* * *

 

He was taken into a tailor shop in the Upper East Side, sneaking confused glances at Eggsy all the while. A tailor shop? Neal observed a quick nod between Eggsy and the tailor, and the young man steered him into Fitting Room 1.  


 

“Whoa there, cowboy. You, me, enclosed space the size of a closet? I don’t think so.”

 

Eggsy snorted, “Don’t worry about it, bruv. Ain’t interested in _you_ anyways.” He leaned forwards, brushing against Neal, placing his thumb firmly on the mirror’s gilded frame and staring directly into the glass with his right eye, as if it was scanning his retina.

 

Judging by how he was suddenly able to open the mirror, Neal deduced that the mirror _was_ actually a retinal scanner. These guys sure took their security seriously.

 

A quick walk down a couple flights of stairs and a few hallways later, Eggsy led him into a train compartment and took a seat, gesturing for Neal to sit down too, pulling out his cellphone and checking a few things. As soon as the train started moving, Eggsy stashed away the pretence of his cellphone and leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees and gazing directly into Neal’s eyes. “Before you ask anything, I want to know: how do you feel about becoming a Kingsman?”

 

“How do I feel about becoming a _tailor_?” Neal cocked an eyebrow, gesturing outside the train window as if he was right in front of the shop, emblazoned with ‘Kingsman’ on the front window.

 

Eggsy chuckled in reply, as if Neal had just fed him a mildly amusing jest. “No, I mean like a Kingsman _agent_.”

 

“An agent? Like the FBI?” Neal received a noncommittal _hm_  in reply.

 

“Not exactly. We, unlike them, aren’t subject to any government. Kingsman is an international intelligence organisation that operates under the highest level of discretion. We are free from the influence of the rest of the world’s politics and we play by our own rules.” Eggsy paused and smiled almost coyly. “So, interested?”

 

A serpentine smile made it’s way onto Neal’s face in reply. “Do you even have to ask?”

 

Eggsy laughed. “Anything else you’d like to know, Neal? This isn’t a long ride by any means, but it’s not short either.”

 

“Just one: why did you choose me? I know it wasn’t to throw me a pity party for having to strike a deal with the FBI.”

 

“Saw some potential in you.” The young man simply replied, eyes glinting mischievously with an untold joke. “Don’t take an idiot to see it’s hard for ‘em to see you as more than a con. We’re a hell lot better about that stuff, and if you wanted, I could grant you immunity. Anything else? No one has _just one_ question.”

 

Neal laughed, “Well maybe more than one, yes. I know you have an British accent-“ “Yeah, bruv. I know.” “-but why do you have two?” Eggsy snickered. “If you haven’t noticed already, bruv, this is a pretty posh place and guess what’s not posh? Cockney, eh mate?”

 

“Fair enough,” Neal gave a short laugh in response. “We’re here?” He asked as the train carriage came to a stop.

 

“We’re here.” Eggsy confirmed, elegantly picking up his umbrella and leading the way into what Neal presumed to be an underground complex. The young man in front of him walked confidently, swinging his umbrella jovially and nodding in greeting to the occasional person that passed them in the hallways. They stopped outside of an ominous metal door, with Eggsy ushering him inside, whispering a good luck before hightailing it.


	2. no

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, guns, foul language, implications of drowning and creative liberties taken to invent a USHQ...

Neal walked into a room with no windows and florescent lighting, housing a few other twenty-somethings. He made sure to take note that a few were in army gear, with their dog tags displayed and some looked like they came from wealth, with their high-quality clothing and carefully styled hair. He supposed he wasn’t actually _too_  overdressed.

 

Quick introductions were made and Neal was hyperaware of every alliance and potential alliance that he had going for him. He knew that he was an attractive, athletic, wealthy-looking young man and that it would get him into some of the circles that the military guys probably wouldn’t be getting access too. Some of them had foreign accents like Eggsy did and it made him wonder, who exactly were they trying to recruit for this spy agency?

 

He didn’t get very long to think about it though, since the door slammed open once more. A young brunette woman walked through authoritatively and somehow, everyone knew to straighten themselves up, even though she looked their age and could've probably be a recruit herself. 

 

“Fall in!” She ordered, and Neal knew that she certainly wasn’t a recruit and she also certainly wasn’t messing around. He followed the others into formation, standing in position with his arms behind his back, chin up and eyes forward. If only Peter could see him now.

 

“Recruits, my name is Lancelot and _you_ , my lucky ladies and gentlemen, have chosen to undertake the most dangerous job interview in the world. One of you, and _only_ one of you will ascend to become the next Delaware. The rest of you may be selected for other application processes according to your ability, so whether you wish to complete against these young men and women for the position of our newest agent or not, make sure to give us your absolute best.  


 

“Now. Can anyone tell me what this is?” She pointed at a neatly folded square of green fabric on one of the beds. Half of the recruits raised their hands confidently, including Neal. Lancelot redirected her pointer finger to a young woman in the front. “You.”

 

“It’s a body bag, Ms Lancelot.”

 

“Correct, and just Lancelot will do. It’s Èlise, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

“Good. Fall out.”

 

* * *

 

“And?” Roxy found her best friend in the tech room, monitoring the candidates’ interaction. “How were this batch? I think we should wait a couple months or so after this one to find Virginia so we can focus on getting this one mission-ready asap.” 

 

Roxy nodded, taking the rolley chair next to Eggsy’s to wait out another hour or so before a junior agent called curfew and the first test would begin. “Your guy seems pretty charming; he’ll ace NLP training.” 

 

Eggsy huffed amusedly, but felt abstractly proud of Neal for allying with such a wide range of people on the first day. “Say… it’s a marked difference from your introduction. Isn’t it, Galahad?” Roxy teased him. “Perhaps the apple falls quite far from the tree, after all!” 

 

“Oi, mate!” He called out, mock offended. “I had a perfectly good introduction to everyone, ta very much!” Roxy guffawed in reply, weakly imitated a jacking off motion with her hand, reminiscent of the vitriol that Eggsy had thrown at Rufus in the first ten minutes. 

 

“Lights out!” An unusually loud shout came from one of the monitors and both agents jumped. “Oooh look Rox, they sent Ambrose! You heading down there now?” 

 

Roxy nodded in reply, sniggering at the scared-to-death recruits. She couldn’t really blame them though; Ambrose, codenamed Kay, was a solid wall of cuddly muscle, at least once you got past the resting bitch face and booming voice. Usually this would happen after training- but unfortunately, during training, Ambrose was there to intimidate the next batch of kiddies. 

 

After Roxy left, Eggsy started to set up the control panel and safety measures for the water test, sending a short transmission to Yvonne’s comms unit to check in on whether she had a functional oxygen feed for the test. She sent back an affirmative, which Eggsy forwarded to Roxy- giving her the go-ahead to flood the candidates’ dorms on her mark. 

 

Predictably, all the military guys, plus Neal, plus a few of the smarter ones in the group swam straight for the shower hoses to shove down the U-bend. Yvonne played her part well, stranded on the other side of the room and thrashing around before masterfully allowing herself to go as still as possible. Much to Eggsy’s disappointment, none of the candidates had even thought about finding an exit route out of the room, or making one, as he had done in his own training. 

 

* * *

 

Whoever was running the thing made them sit right for about two and half minutes before re-draining the room of water. 

 

Once the dormitory looked like it hadn’t just been flooded at all, aside from the sodden bedsheets and even-more-sodden recruits, Lancelot walked in with disappointed eyes and a stern mouth.

 

“As far as I know, you all failed.” She stated bluntly. Neal felt a sharp pang of disappointment. He really hadn’t wanted to fail this on the first day. “Each and every one of you forgot one of the most important parts of being a team: teamwork.” A pointer finger in the direction of the other side of the room. “And look what that brought upon you. This is serious. You cannot afford to have another failure.” 

 

Lancelot had achieved what she was aiming to; horror was writ across the faces of the entire group of recruits and she knew it was guaranteed that the macabre image of a drowned Yvonne would haunt their minds forever. Amelia still did for her on some nights, even though she knew that the girl was safe and sound, working in the Berlin branch of Kingsman as the one and only Morgana le Fay. 

 

She turned sharply on her heel and strode purposefully out of the dormitories, calling over her shoulder, “Curfew is enacted at 2200 hours. Dismissed!”

 

No one would be sleeping that night, both Lancelot and Galahad knew that for sure. They certainly hadn't.

 

* * *

 

The next day, the recruits were roused from their dormitories bright and early by a chipper Lancelot. “Written tests today everyone! Be ready in ten!” 

 

Everyone groaned, hauling themselves out of bed to take turns showering and brushing their teeth at the limited facilities. Not for the first time in the fifteen-or-so hours that he’d been there, Neal wondered if he’d made the right choice to come with Eggsy. This training was a hundred percent having it out for him. Early mornings really weren’t his thing.

 

The tests ended up being relatively alright, only made worse by a collective lack of sleep and a very intimidating man at the front as proctor. 

 

Luckily, Neal got to see Eggsy for a few seconds that day since he came in and announced that their time was up and to ‘kindly’ hand their papers in to the ‘lovely’ Bors.

 

Bors glared at them.

 

Four girls and two guys in the group of trainees gossiped about how attractive Eggsy was after he left; a whirlwind of feathery blonde hair, mischievous blue eyes and sleek, tailored suits. They alternated between asking around if he was anyone’s sponsor and sighing over how lucky it would be to have him ask them to join Kingsman. Neal felt an odd burst of pride that Eggsy was his sponsor, that someone with such a reputation with the trainees thought he was good enough.

 

He didn’t get much time to think on it because Lancelot came back in, gesturing for them to follow her with a brisk nod of her head. 

 

And then came, “Pick a puppy.” 

 

* * *

 

Neal had chosen a little labrador retriever with Satchmo firmly in mind, the puppy making adorable whuffs and nuzzling into his leg. 

 

“Good choice,” an amused voice came from behind him, “he’ll grow up to be strong.”

 

“Yeah?” Neal turned around calmly, nodding to the spot next to him on the bench he was occupying. “So what did you choose during your training?” 

 

Eggsy laughed, flashing the whites of his teeth for a split second. He accepted the unspoken invitation to sit, casually unbuttoning his suit jacket as he sat down, as if he’d done it a thousand times before. “I made the rather _unwise_ choice of a pug as my companion.” He admitted sheepishly. “His name’s JB and Ro- I mean Lancelot, is looking after him right now. I’ll introduce you two later. What’s his name?”

 

“Him?” Neal gestured down at the tiny little retriever. “I called him Matisse. Matty for short.”

 

Eggsy offered him a knowing smile. “Like the artist?” Neal laughed. “Like the artist.” He confirmed. 

 

A comfortable silence enveloped them, only broken by Matisse’s occasional whine or bark. Neal snuck a couple of glances at the young man sitting next to him. It seemed like he knew a hell lot about Neal and Neal didn’t know anything about him. It didn’t entirely sit right with him. 

 

“You’re staring,” Eggsy drawled, fluttering open an eye from his impromptu nap. Neal inwardly flushed and worked on keeping up an unconcerned face. “I really did mean you could ask me anything on the train, you know. I might not be able to answer sometimes, but I’ll try my best to.”

 

“Why? You owe me nothing.” 

 

A gentle smile. “Sometimes it’s not a question of ‘earning’ or ‘deserving’, Neal, no matter what Peter Burke tells you. It’s worked well for him, but for some people, they get a miracle in their lifetime and they have to take it and run.” 

 

“Were you one of those people?”

 

Eggsy nodded. “My sponsor gave me what was probably the best opportunity of my life, even though I had just been released by the cops for car theft and reckless driving.” 

 

“You?” Neal raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Reckless driving?” 

 

Eggsy flashed a manic grin. “I was in control the entire time, don’t worry about my little old self, Caffrey. The sentiment is nice though.” He winked. 

 

* * *

 

Everything was going well; the hand-to-hand combat training, the puppy-rearing, the Kingsman history, picking locks, doing drops… and then the guns. 

 

Neal _hated_ guns. 

 

It took a few seconds to quickly steel himself and reluctantly take up a Kingsman standard handgun from the armoury. He could see Lancelot’s piercing gaze at his back and he held no illusions that his aversion to guns would be noted down. A pang of satisfaction erupted in his stomach when she held an impressed air when she saw him shooting. Despite his disinclination to them, she couldn’t say that Neal had bad aim. When his target sheet was pulled over, all of the shots were clustered around the heart and forehead.

 

“Impressive, Caffrey.” Lancelot commented in passing, sneaking him a small smile over her shoulder. Neal couldn't help but feel bile rising in his throat.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t really a surprise when Eggsy approached him the next day, asking him to head down to the range. 

 

“Free day today, Caffrey. Want to get some practice in?” He asked, casually unholstering a Browning from under his suit jacket. Neal sighed, rolling his eyes. “Did Lancelot say something?”

 

“Perhaps.” Was the nonchalant reply, Eggsy absentmindedly playing with the weapon in his hands. 

 

“Fine. Let’s go.” 

 

* * *

  


If Neal thought that _he_ was a good shot, Eggsy made him look like a complete amateur. The young man was all sleek elegance and terrifying accuracy when he had a gun in his hands. “Want a go?” Eggsy smirked, totally aware that his recruit was staring wide-eyed. 

 

Neal shook himself out of it. “How the hell did you learn to shoot like that? No one in the FBI can do that kind of stuff.” 

 

“Practice,” he shrugged, offering a handgun for Neal to use. Even though his hesitation was split-second, Eggsy still managed to catch it. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t make it up to be more than it is; _this_ ,” he glanced pointedly at the handgun, “is only a tool used to protect yourself and others. _You_ have complete control over this. Remember that. This will do no harm to someone unless _you_ intend it to, and I, for one, trust completely in your judgement.”

 

Neal let out a heavy sigh, taking up the gun more confidently than he had in years. “Good,” Eggsy said encouragingly. 

 

He unleashed an entire clip at the target, the bullets hitting exactly where he intended them to. “Good!” Eggsy exclaimed approvingly. 

 

“What’s got you so excited, Galahad?” The amused voice of Lancelot came from behind both of them. Neal whipped around in surprise, but Eggsy only shot her a cheeky look over his shoulder and ignored her for a few more seconds in favour of pulling Neal’s shots forward. “He’s getting better.” Eggsy and Lancelot held a short congress over Neal’s shots. 

 

“You two are close?” An offhand comment drew them both from their quiet discussion that no longer centred over Neal’s target. 

 

“Oh.” Lancelot laughed. It was the first time Neal had ever seen the woman smile. “Yes, but probably not in the way you’re thinking.” 

 

Eggsy agreed with her, after getting over the shock that his recruit would dare to ask the question directly to Roxy’s face. He wouldn’t have dared to say anything of the sort to Merlin whilst they were in training; they were all well aware that the man had control over their entire _lives_ for those nightmarish three months. 

 

“Back to the dorms for you, scoundrel,” Eggsy teased, “Lance was probably just about to call curfew.” He raised a brow at her and she nodded, gently herding Neal back to the group. 

 

* * *

 

Neal was determined to get over it with guns. Though he’d always been scared that he’d shoot someone accidentally, no matter his skill, or someone undeserving, no matter his own logic, he knew in the back of his mind that someday he’d have to use one. It helped a lot that Eggsy told him outright that he trusted Neal with such a weapon; one that could rip away the life of a person in a fraction of a second. He tried to make time for Neal and came in with all kinds of advice on whatever his candidate was working on, but he seemed frazzled and perpetually busy.

 

Once, he inquired as to why a senior agent like Eggsy would go out of his way to spend time with a trainee like Neal. Eggsy had briefly told him about his own sponsor, the Galahad before him, and how he barely got to spend time with him for reasons out of both of their control. He’d said that he wanted to teach his own recruits as much as he could because he wanted a proper relationship between them that he and his sponsor didn’t get to have during his own training. It was awe-inspiring how Eggsy thought sometimes, as if he _lived_ to make people more content. Neal knew for sure that despite having to review ways to murder people almost daily now, it felt like the most accepted that he’d been in a long time. Even at the FBI, he- and everyone else, for that matter- was hyperaware that he was a criminal; that he didn’t truly _belong_ walking the floors of a federal building, under the very agent who’d caught him. 

 

Twice, as Peter enjoyed reminding him.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, the next test wasn’t anything that anyone had even thought to prepare for. 

 

Parachuting. 

 

Neal, for one, was ecstatic. He loved the rush he got from jumping off things; it was probably the main reason that base jumping was one of his favourite methods of escape, other than the fact that it was efficient and badass-looking. For others, it was an exercise in fear. Neal could hear Mathilde and Patrick hyperventilating through their shared comms units, and while he felt some pity for them, it was a test at the end of the day and he doubted that Kingsman would gun them down for not jumping out of a plane.

 

Soon enough, the green light went off and the recruits dove off of the platform in groups of two. Mathilde and Patrick were left behind. The cohort didn’t see hide nor hair of them after that.

 

“Glad you lot are having the time of your lives out there,” the amused voice of Lancelot came through loud and clear, “but…” she continued sneakily, “what if one of you didn’t have a parachute?”

 

To say there was a huge panic would be an understatement.

 

“What the hell, are you letting one of us die like that?!”

 

“You fucks! What the fuck are we supposed to do!?”

 

Whilst a good half of the others were swearing out Kingsman and everything they stood for, Neal thought through frantically for a plan. Unfortunately, he’d only ever base jumped by himself before and barely even had a clue of where to start in saving someone else during a parachuting mishap of the highest order. 

 

“Pair off!” One of the girls, Kate, commanded. “Pull your chutes one at a time and whoever doesn’t have one can be carried to the ground by whoever doesn’t!”

 

Everyone hurried to obey. Neal glided over to the nearest recruit, who happened to be Kate. They nodded in acknowledgement of the plan and they free-fell a couple hundred more feet before they were safely out of range of the radar. Neal gestured for her to pull her cord first. She did, and thankfully, a parachute billowed out above her, a sharp jerk in air resistance jolting the both of them as Neal firmly kept ahold of Kate’s forearms. Tentatively, he pulled his cord too and once again, a parachute was released from his pack. He let go of Kate and recentered his focus on getting himself into the K emblazoned on a field below. Sparing a look up, he noticed that every single recruit actually had parachutes and laughed gaily. Of course they wouldn’t be risking the lives of their trainees like that. The nerve of Lancelot, Neal thought amusedly. 

 

Only five of the recruits, including Neal, landed within the K. Three of of the others were cut out from training, not including Mathilde and Patrick, who probably hadn’t even jumped. Neal hadn’t heard their voices over the comms. Undoubtedly, they’d be the ones screaming the loudest if they’d found out they didn’t have parachutes.

 

“What’s happened to Mathilde and Patrick?” Neal inquired after their debriefing was done and Lancelot dismissed them.

 

“I’m glad to hear your concern for your fellows, Caffrey. They’re safe and are probably being debriefed themselves right this moment. Both of them are getting sent home for failing this one and each of them are signing another confidentiality agreement for ex-trainees.”

 

Neal dipped his head in acknowledgement, feeling a slight pang of regret that he hadn’t encouraged them to jump with the rest of them. Well, too late to do anything about it now. It was a series of tests anyways, and despite his want to help everyone in his cohort to do the best they could, Neal knew that at the end of the day, it was a competition and he needed as many other competitors out if he wanted to succeed.

 

“Thank you, ma’am.”

 

“You’re welcome, Caffrey. Dismissed.”

 

* * *

 

One more recruit was eliminated for failing their fifth round of written tests covering general knowledge and basic logic.

  
And two more were failed during the rapid language round, where they were required to learn as much of a random language as they could in a week, and were aurally tested at the end of that week. Everyone was expected to be able to get through basic pleasantries and cultural terminology. 

 

And then there were two left standing.

 

* * *

 

It all came down to the dog test.

 

Neal was told to sit. He sat. Matisse was told to sit. He sat. Neal was given a gun and he felt the familiar feeling of bile rising. His stomach was tied in knots.

 

“Shoot the dog.” The cold voice of an agent he'd never even seen before, commanded.

 

At that moment, it was clear to Neal that he couldn’t be one of them. Not if he had to do this.

 

“No.” 


	3. training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, minor violence, curious invention of a USHQ...

Not even a second later, a gunshot came almost mockingly from the room next door. 

 

Eggsy stepped into the room housing Neal and Emmanuel, the other half of the final two, came through the door adjoining his and Neal’s rooms. Along with his very-much-alive collie. And boy, if _that_ wasn’t a hard pill to swallow. Had it been a blank all along?

 

“Welcome to Kingsman, Delaware.” Eggsy shook Manny’s hand. Neal bowed his head in disappointment. “Go grab your things from the dorms. Massachusetts will be there to show you to your quarters. You’ve done Ector proud.”

 

“Thank you, Galahad sir.”

 

The newly minted Delaware confidently strode out, clicking his fingers for León to follow him, though not before shooting a sympathetic glance at Neal. His eyes were still fixed on the floor though, so he never saw the glance nor Eggsy quietly motioning the other agent out of the room.

 

He knew it when the door clicked shut though. Somehow, he knew there was still someone there and he’d bet a Cézanne that it was Eggsy. 

 

“Disappointed?” Neal asked bitterly, relying on his assumption that the presence in the room was his mentor.

 

“Never.” Came the vehement response. And he looked up, wondering if it was all a farce and he’d see hate in the young man’s eyes. He didn’t. “There are other positions in Kingsman, you know? Other than agents.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Neal knew an proposition when he heard one. “What about them?”

 

“I could pass something on to Merlin.” Was the blunt reply. “Not out of pity though, Neal. You have to understand that. I only needed a way to get your foot in the door, to get your skills noticed. Merlin’s not in the habit of hiring any excess agents in his department. Truth be told, I didn’t even have to submit your files for him to send me a message, requesting you for himself if you happened to fail a test or decide you didn’t want to go down this path. Your innate skills and other experience would make you a top-notch handler.” 

 

“Really?” 

 

“Really. I can give you some time to think it over, Merlin says his offer has no expiration date, though he’d like me to give him an answer within a week.” Eggsy said wryly.

 

“I’ll take it.” Neal said immediately. Eggsy raised a concerned eyebrow. “Are you sure? We don’t want to make you feel pressured into anything, that somehow you have to make it up to me for not shooting your dog or something. That'd be messed up, bruv." His lips twisted up in a smirk.

 

“Absolutely sure. I want this, one hundred percent.”

 

“Well then, we’ll be flying you over to the main HQ for more training.” Eggsy winked. Neal felt something warm unfurl in his stomach. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but certainly welcome.

 

Maybe this time, he’d found a place to stay. For good.

 

* * *

 

It was a surprise, yet not a surprise, to see Mozzie waiting casually for him upon arrival at Gatwick.

 

“They offered you a job too?” Neal asked. 

  
  
Mozzie nodded happily, abruptly turning on his heel and wandering out of the airport, expecting Neal to keep up. They got into a taxi and without either of them even telling the driver where to go, they just sped through the countryside and into the heart of London, getting dropped off at a tailor shop: Kingsman.

 

“You ready?” Mozzie asked him gently. “I heard about what happened back home.”

 

“Yeah,” Neal breathed, “I’m ready for this. Can’t be harder than recruit training, can it?” He joked weakly. 

 

“Oh I wouldn’t be so sure, _mon frère_. Merlin’s quite the taskmaster. He trained Lancelot, you know.”

 

Neal groaned. “Great. Just great.”

 

* * *

 

“Mr Caffrey?” The shopkeeper asked upon his arrival. He was an elderly man, dressed in a sensible beige cardigan over a crisp white formal shirt. “Arthur has requested your presence in the meeting room upon your arrival.”

 

“Arthur?” Neal hissed in Mozzie’s ear. He had a suspicion who ‘Arthur’ was, since Lancelot and Eggsy weren’t all too subtle about being named after knights in the tales of King Arthur. He was pretty sure that the ‘King’ of the agency wanted to speak to him. What for though, he had no idea. Was it his criminal past coming back to bite him in the ass? It wouldn’t be the first time. 

 

“The big boss,” Mozzie hissed back, “though _why_ he wishes to see you, I have no idea.” "Beats me too, Moz."

 

“If you’d follow me, Mr Caffrey?” The shopkeeper’s frail hands motioned for Neal to follow him up the stairs. 

 

Glossy mahogany doors greeted them and Neal took a deep breath before he drew up a hand to knock with a confidence that he didn’t really have. “Come in.” Came a commanding baritone from behind the double doors.  


 

Neal cracked them open and stepped inside. 

 

A polished man in a pinstriped tailored suit and tortoiseshell glasses greeted him with a tea set on the imposing, antique meeting room table. “Do take a seat, Mr Caffrey.” The chair to the man’s right was offered to with a polite wave of hand. Neal glided over and smoothly sat down, accepting a cup of tea when it was offered.

 

It really shouldn’t have shocked him that Arthur even knew his preference for tea. He was the head of an international spy organisation, after all. 

 

“Galahad was your sponsor, wasn’t he?” The conversation starter was more to-the-point than he expected. For such a gentlemanly looking guy, he sure got down to business. 

 

“Yeah, he was.”

 

“Good, good.” Arthur replied absentmindedly, stirring his tea with practiced rotations of his wrist. “He has proved more than adequate in his mentorship, has he not?”

 

“He has, sir.” 

 

“May I ask why you chose not to shoot the dog then?” Oh there it was. Of course he’d be asked something like that. Neal had a sneaking suspicion that to get where he was at now, Arthur too had shot the dog.

 

“I just couldn’t. Even though Matty would’ve walked out alive either way, I didn’t know that.”

 

Arthur hummed. “You know, Eggsy- he asked you to call him Eggsy, no?- well, he couldn’t shoot his silly pug either.”

 

“JB?” Neal laughed, astonished. “If I was stuck with _that_ lazy thing during training, I might’ve just shot him by myself!” He reminisced about all the times he and Matisse had to run around the track together; with Matty trying to keep pace with Neal at first, and then Neal fighting to keep pace with Matty not too long after. 

 

“He nearly did, actually.” Arthur commented. “It was during the first run that the candidates had to go around the track and the silly dog refused to walk any further, so Eggsy stuck him down his boiler suit. After turning his gun on him, of course.”

 

Neal choked. Arthur looked vaguely proud of himself for making his knight’s protégé double over and go red, coughing on his tea.

 

“That’s… resourceful.” Neal rasped, eyes crinkling in mirth. By the looks of Arthur’s pursed lips and laughing eyes, it appeared that he agreed in full. They sat there for awhile, sipping their tea and enjoying the comfortable silence. Well, Neal was shifting in his seat, but Arthur looked perfectly relaxed as his gaze lazily contemplated the room.

 

“Well,” the man said breezily, setting down his teacup with a decisive _clink_ , “I suppose I’ve kept you for long enough. Merlin awaits.”

 

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Neal gracefully got up from his seat, bowing slightly at Arthur before turning and getting directed by the shopkeeper- who’d asked to be called Dagonet- to yet another underground train carriage. He got the feeling that he’d be taken to the UK’s version of a secret headquarters somewhere. 

 

* * *

  

Well, it wasn’t exactly _secret_ , per se. 

 

On the contrary, it was a sprawling countryside estate. Because of course it was.

 

Mozzie was waiting for him on the other side, along with a tall, stern man- also bald, though where Mozzie was smiling affably at Neal, the other bald man was scowling. Neal sighed inwardly. _That_ was probably Merlin.

 

“Hello Caffrey. My name is Merlin and for the next months, you’ll be answering to me.”

 

“Hi Merlin.”

 

“Come along, boy. You have a lot to get done.” Without even so much as a say-so, Merlin turned sharply on his heel and began stalking determinedly down the veritable maze that was UKHQ. 

 

Mozzie was still smiling as he walked alongside Neal, patting him on the back as they stopped in a high-energy room, filled with people jabbering incomprehensibly and running around with coffee-stained files. 

 

Merlin was waiting for him by a control table with three desktop screens on it, a comms unit and a keyboard. “This,” he motioned to all of it, “will be your home for the next few months. You will eat, sleep and breathe your handling programme. You’ll know what to do and say to our agents in just about every situation by the end of this if you put blood, sweat and tears into it. There won’t be any safety nets, boy. You must be made aware that every decision you make here, has _consequences_.”

 

He pulled over a short, grinning woman and sat her down next to Neal. “This is Oli, she’ll be your advisor for now. You’re to run three programmes of her choice by 1400 hours. Get to it, boy.”

 

* * *

 

“You _really_ weren’t kidding when you said Merlin was a real taskmaster.” Neal groaned, throwing his forearm over his eyes in a lazy attempt to block out the afternoon sunlight and melt into the couch.

 

Mozzie chuckled, leaning back against one of the ancient willow trees peppering the Kingsman-owned forest. “Of course not, he takes his agents’ lives _very_ seriously. You especially, since when you handle yours missions, you won’t even be under Merlin’s nose.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Arthur means to station you back home.” Mozzie explained patiently. “In New York, to be specific.”

 

“Oh,” Neal widened his eyes in surprise, “really?” It was a nice feeling to be trusted with so much; God knew Peter wouldn’t dare let Neal take that much responsibility unsupervised. He resolved to show Merlin that he was fully capable and could be trusted one-hundred percent. Mozzie could identify the split second that his friend made the decision and he smiled serenely. It was strange how quickly he’d changed his mind about Kingsman; before, he certainly wouldn’t have endorsed following the orders of Suits. Well, he justified, these Suits weren’t really _Suits_ , they were different.

 

Plus, these Suits belonged to a super secret spy ring. With super secret villain/villainess targets- practically a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. And if Mozzie was anything, he was a conspiracy theorist.

 

* * *

  

For the next three months, Neal worked his arse off. He could already do mental calculations like lightning and code better than the average individual. 

 

Under Merlin’s tutelage however, Neal could code and hack like nobody’s business, he didn’t even have to think to throw numbers together and could easily manage up to four windows simultaneously on each of his three desktop screens. He could see the ‘bigger picture’ and make the difficult split-second decisions that could mean life or death for a field operative. All in all, he was sure he now made a better handler than agent. 

 

He wasn’t even bitter about it; he’d finally found his niche. The challenge of doing cons was a rush, sure; but strangely, being on edge 24/7, having complete faith in his skills, having others have complete faith in _him_ \- it was gratifying. He was getting paid, he was doing a job with people that he liked, he had a permanent thing going that Mozzie could be in on. 

 

And the best part was, Neal wasn’t even a very special situation. There were an overwhelming number of former con artists, hackers, illegal espionage agents, you name it. They’d all been taken in by Kingsman and asked to utilise their skills for the greater good, though they _were_ quite firmly in the grey areas; something that Mozzie had taken quite some delight in. 

 

Here, going off the books was a regular thing, as long as you got the job done. Here, it wasn’t a big thing to be connected to active criminals; in fact, it was considered quite strange if you didn’t. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t appreciated, it was well known that a handler could be even more important than the agents that they were advising. Their information had to be airtight because one Kingsman’s mission could be tied to several others. Getting compromised was not an option. And guess who gathered and kept track of all the intel- the handlers. 

 

Moz came around all the time too; he was specialised in recon and hacking, though handlers and agents alike had learned to come to him first if they needed any advice in some obscure field. It was actually a really good chance that he'd have something stored away.

 

* * *

  

It was in his second month of life under the wing of the Merlin department that Eggsy returned to UKHQ.

 

“Caffrey!” He exclaimed gleefully, bounding over to Neal’s desktop alcove; littered with empty coffee cups, used pens, crumbled papers and ink stains. “You’ve got quite the thing going here,” he teased. 

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Neal replied good-naturedly, “laugh it up. Merlin’s a slave driver.”

 

“Oh, don’t I know it.” Eggsy said, shaking his head. “He was the one who did my training.”

 

“No!” Neal shot up, baby blues blown wide in astonishment. “Yes.” Eggsy countered. “I’d love to get back down and feed you a few stories, but I got a thing with ‘arry now that I’ll be late for.”

 

“Harry?” Neal inquired. 

 

“Oh, Arthur.” Eggsy replied. “Debriefin’ with ‘im ’n’ Merlin in five."

 

“Arthur? Good luck, he seems the type to be a wolf under his sheepskin.” Neal looked at him sympathetically.

 

“Oh, don't I know it.” Eggsy said dismissively. “Aren’t we all?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i hope everyone approves of my decision to make our little conman into badass mini-merlin?


	4. galahad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: not beta-read, deviation from canon, some foul language, violence, odd materialising of a USHQ...

Finally, after three and a half months of hard work and many, many, many mission simulations, Merlin trusted Neal to co-handle Galahad’s latest assignment. It was more high-stakes than most beginners ended up with, Merlin warned, and that he shouldn’t worry if he panicked or wasn’t able to advise Eggsy properly. 

 

Neal endeavoured not to. He wanted to show his sponsor that he was right to bring an ex-con into his organisation and Merlin that he could be trusted with his agents’ lives. High stakes indeed.

 

Mozzie had offered him a swig of scotch for courage, but Neal made the active decision to decline, wanting to be fully aware of himself when he’d be on comms for Eggsy.

 

“Galahad, can you hear me?”

 

“Loud and clear, Neal. Hey Elaine, how’s it hanging?”

 

“Cheeky, you.” Neal’s co-handler and Merlin’s second in command, Elaine, replied fondly. “Neal’s on comms today, Galahad. I’ll be in the background on this one.”

 

“Yes,” the agent hissed in victory. “You go, Caffrey!”

 

Neal chuckled, absentmindedly checking all the CCTV surrounding Galahad. “Target approaching from Cygnet Street in three… two… one. Look alive, Galahad.”

 

Eggsy made himself look as unnoticeable as possible; seating himself in a darker area of the room to stay out of sight, defensive posture to discourage others to approach and his head bowed over the glass of whiskey on the rocks that told everyone that he wasn’t talking even if they tried. And it worked; the target, a woman simply called ‘L’ in the underworld. It was Galahad’s job to tail her back to a meeting she had scheduled for that night and eliminate all those involved. 

 

“Target making to leave. Standby, Galahad.” Neal ordered after watching a good half hour of the woman chatting with two men who were already profiled as her informants, focusing on the CCTV so he could pinpoint the moment that L made a definitive move to go. 

 

“Acknowledged, Caffrey. Standing by.” 

 

Neal knew it was time when L gave the room a quick look, turning in her seat to scan every corner as quickly as possible. She up and left without arousing much attention, leaving a five pound note on the table. “Target heading northeast fast. Clean those two up and then go after her, Galahad.” 

 

“Roger.” Galahad bit into his comms unit, swiftly getting to his feet and swinging his Rainmaker casually. 

 

“Oh, this is gonna be good!” Elaine chuckled, leaning forward in her chair to get a better look. “Galahad’s _very_ into the theatrics, just you see.”

 

“I would never have guessed.” Neal replied wryly, trusting Elaine’s word and lounging back to enjoy the show. 

 

“Excuse me, sirs.” Galahad interrupted politely, tapping each of their shoulders. “I was wondering about a woman called ‘L’, if you’ve heard of her?” And with that, he immediately walked out, probably expecting the two goons to follow him out to a rather conveniently placed alleyway. And of course they did. 

 

“Interesting,” Neal commented, “don’t think I’ve ever done _that_ before…” Elaine chortled, swatting at the man playfully. “Don’t pretend you haven’t; it’s a classic.” Neal made a mock-scandalised face in response as if to say ‘who me?’. “Sh sh sh, it’s just about to get good!” Elaine hissed in anticipation.

 

“Wot’d the likes o’ ye know ‘bout L?” The bigger of the two rumbled, cracking his knuckles menacingly as if preparing for a fistfight.

 

“Gentlemen, gentlemen.” Galahad placated in a falsely pleasant voice. “We don’t have to fight-“ And the goon threw the first punch. 

 

Galahad dodged it easily, throwing one of his own back and connecting full-force with the man’s solar plexus. He doubled over and was knocked out cold with the end of the Rainmaker- a titanium alloy that prevented breakages unless under Merlin’s definition of ‘extreme stress’. And Merlin’s definition of ‘extreme stress’ was like _extreme_ stress, Neal had learned during his very brief stint at R &D. It was like run over by a Mack truck, a couple of tanks and a few nuclear bombs kind-of stress.

 

Meanwhile, the smaller of the two men was slowly backing away from Galahad’s show of power, his curled fists gradually unclenching and his eyes widening in fear as the beaming knight turned on him. “Sorry mate, don’t take it personally. It’s the job.” Eggsy told him conversationally, just before he bound over a rubbish tip to drop on the man from above, slamming him to the ground in a somehow-elegant movement, putting a gun to his forehead and ruthlessly pulling the trigger. He did the same for the other one, shooting his heart like it was an afterthought and immediately taking off in the direction that L was heading in before his little skirmish.

 

“Directions, Neal?” The bastard wasn’t even out of breath. Neal felt a moment of awe for his sponsor. Even though he was slightly ashamed to say that he initially harboured some doubts because of Eggsy’s age, it was pretty evident that the younger man was _the_ definition of badass. 

 

“Yeah, yeah.” He’d been recording L’s path through London with the CCTV. “Uh, take the next left and then another left after three blocks.”

 

“Got it.” Galahad affirmed in between breaths as he sprinted through the late-night crowd. Some drunkards even had the audacity to laugh and wish him good luck ‘chasing after his bird’.

 

“Right on Ridgemont Gardens and then take the next two lefts.” Neal ordered. He got a loud huff in response. 

 

“And then right on Dowager and down the third side alley you see.”

 

“How’s their security, Caffrey?”

 

“Uh.” Neal scrambled around for the information with rapid clicks and loud keystrokes. “It would be faster if you could get there and show me.”

 

“Roger.” Elaine sighed and Neal could imagine her fingers itching to help. He felt a sinking in his stomach but figured it couldn’t have been too bad of a strike if she chose not to jump in and take over Galahad’s comms.

 

“Okay, it looks like it’s just a keypad for a passcode. Want me to tell you how to get past it?” Neal asked.

 

Galahad thought for a moment before nodding. “Okay, remove the outer shell of the keypad as gently as you can to get through to the wiring in the back. Let’s have a look at that… hm… yeah… okay, now cut through the _blue_ and _striped_ wires- nothing else.”

 

The little light on the keypad turned green and Elaine and Neal sighed in relief. “Ready to break in?”

 

“Well, the door’s open,” the agent snarked, “might as well make myself at home.”

 

“Oh and what would that entail, Galahad?” Elaine teased.

 

“I think a few holes in each of their heads would make me feel a little safer, Elaine, what do you think?”

 

“I think you should go for it, Galahad.” Neal put his two cents in.

 

“Uh-uh! Darling boy, your marksmanship is well above par- one bullet each or it’s coming out of your paycheque!” Arthur, who happened to be passing by, scolded fondly.

 

“Yes, dear.” Galahad sounded put-out, though Neal noted that he did actually relegate himself to one headshot per goon. Anyone who he couldn’t take out once and for all got themselves put into their places with some well-aimed throwing knives that Galahad smoothly wrenched from limp bodies when need be. 

 

“Hm. Better. You’ll be home for supper, won’t you?”

 

“I’ll try to get this wrapped up quick, ‘Arry.”

 

“Good. Carry on then.” Arthur said approvingly to them all before swanning gracefully out of the room, even with an armful of files. The man defied any and all logic, apparently even death if the rampart rumours around the Merlin department were true. 

 

“They’re…?” Neal asked, still feeling a bit blindsided by the revelation. 

 

“Yes.” Elaine replied firmly. “And if you have a prob-“

 

“No, no, no!” He waved his hands fervently. “It’s just that he was my mentor and it’s just-“

 

“I see.” Elaine’s tone softened. “You probably felt close enough to him to know a bit more about his personal life?”

 

“Yeah,” Neal replied, “he even told me about what landed _him_ in the cooler and some crap stories about Merlin. I thought he would’ve said something about having a partner if he had one.”

 

“They’re not in the habit of saying anything about it,” Elaine explained, “and everyone here knows anyways, so I suppose he just assumed you’d know.”

 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

 

“You two done talking about my love life?” Galahad butted in casually. “I’m in, by the way. The building plans we went over in briefing have been accurate so far and I think I can hear some talking going on somewhere ‘round here.”

 

“Awesome. Are they close?” 

 

“Yeah, just down the corridor now.”

 

“Everything’s on your mark now, Galahad. I’m calling in extraction; this should be a quick job.”

 

“Got it- in and out fast.” And with that, Galahad broke down the door with a well-placed kick.

 

“Theatrics?” Neal asked, amused. “Theatrics.” Elaine confirmed, a fond, long-suffering expression on her face.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Galahad drawled, waving his gun about in a careless-but-not-actually-careless manner. “Surrender now and avoid a fight or I can, and will, take every single one of you down.” 

 

Clearly, the criminal underworld wasn’t renowned for thinking straight and clearly couldn’t identify the look of an agent that was itching to get his assignment over and done with so that he could make it to dinner with his significant other. And with a dramatic sigh as the first woman pounced at him with a knife, Galahad began systematically laying waste to every single person occupying that room.

 

“One bullet each, Galahad!” Apparently Arthur had the power to hack the comms units.

 

A resigned sigh came through.

 

Neal snickered. It appeared that even the best agents bowed to their better halves. A small pang emitted from his stomach when that train of thought led to Peter and Elizabeth.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” a breathless Eggsy ran up to him, probably coming from Arthur’s office after his debriefing, “wanna do something for your first successful mission? Me, Rox and Moz had some time off and we wanted to commemorate.” He nudged Neal’s shoulder with his own, grinning proudly. “Come on, you know you want to.”

 

“Won’t Merlin have something to say?” Neal protested weakly, already feeling himself give in.

 

“Nah,” Eggsy shrugged, “he’ll turn a blind eye. He’s proud o’ you.”

 

“Alright then.” Neal grinned. “Let’s go.”

 

A quick stop at Lancelot’s office had Roxy and Mozzie coming along; the two had bonded unnaturally well. It terrified Neal. His trainer and his best friend co-conspiring? Best not.

 

“Dinner and drinks?” Roxy suggested. Her proposal met all-round approval and after a fast change into casual clothes for her and Eggsy, the quartet bundled into the bullet train back into London and went to Roxy and Eggsy’s favourite pub for post-mission drinks.

 

They decided to do the sensible thing and eat before they started drinking. Mozzie swore on his life that it would reduce next morning's hangover. Neal found that pub food was generally good stuff, and this was no exception. A hearty shepherd’s pie was all he needed before piling on the alcohol. Eggsy and Roxy shared a meal and Mozzie devoured a leg of lamb- a result of skipping lunch in favour of hanging around the R&D department during the development of yet another explosive. 

 

“First round on me!” Eggsy announced after finishing off the last of his food. He asked for three pints of whatever was on tap and wine for Mozzie. The balding man saluted Neal’s mentor with his glass of chardonnay and Roxy and Neal did the same with their tankards of ale. 

 

Surprisingly, they didn’t get _completely_ trashed, but Roxy came quite close. It was inevitable though; Eggsy knew well that she was a lightweight and avoided alcohol at all costs on missions. One of the perks of being Kingsman was definitely the cabs, Neal thought. He and Mozzie took one back to the shop since their temporary quarters were at HQ. Roxy and Eggsy took another back to the mews, where they each had an agency-issued townhouse. 

 

All in all, not a bad post-mission tradition. He and Peter certainly hadn’t had one, and the immediate inclusivity was quite refreshing for someone who’d been a criminal in the midst of federal agents for the past two years.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Neal woke up with a mild hangover. He groaned, pulling his pillow over his throbbing head, though he was well aware it could’ve been worse. Oh yes, it certainly could’ve been _much_ worse, especially with his mentor’s absurdly high constitution; which he’d discovered for himself in the enlightening twenty-four hours they’d spent together before the dog test.

 

His phone was buzzing on the nightstand, only adding to the headache and he found a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water sitting innocuously beside the annoying device. 

 

Deciding to check his texts first, Neal found that Merlin had called him in ten minutes ago. Swearing profusely, he swallowed down two tablets with a swig of water and stumbled out of bed. Five minutes later, after a two minute shower, throwing on some non-wrinkled clothes and tearing a comb through his unruly locks, Neal sprinted down to Ground Level 5- the home of the Merlin department.

 

“You’re late.” Merlin informed him upon arrival, sparing a second from his clipboard/tablet to shoot Neal a disapproving glare. 

 

“Sorry Merlin,” Neal panted, adrenalin pumping through his system from the rush, “late night.”

 

Merlin sighed resignedly. “Yes, Galahad told me you might be _indisposed_ this morning. I’ll forgive it this once, boy. You did good work yesterday.”

 

“Thank you sir.” Neal let out a breath of relief, taking a seat at his desk. “What’s on the agenda today?”

 

“Guess-” Merlin deadpanned, not planning on letting Neal answer, “more simulations.”

 

Neal groaned, tipping his head back. Whipping forward, he came back up ready to type. More simulations meant more failure on the carefully generated missions, he was sure. Merlin was going to subtly torture him for taking a night to himself out of HQ. 

 

It was so worth it.

 

* * *

 

“It appears,” Mozzie announced, “that I am to be transferred to USHQ for the R&D department. Merlin says they’re sorely lacking in creative minds.”

 

“And you volunteered?” Neal asked dryly.

 

“But of course!”

 

Neal sighed, absentmindedly tossing Mozzie’s carefully created rubber band ball up in the air and catching it, a familiar habit. “Don’t worry,” his friend placated him, “they’re bound to send you home too. The big boss just wants to make sure you can appropriately ‘handle’.”

 

“You’re right, Moz. They just don’t want to send off the newbie just yet.”

 

“ _But_ , I’ve heard a few whispers that you’ll be packed up and sent off within the next few weeks. I’ll contact June and tell her that we’re making our comeback!” Mozzie looked ecstatic at the thought of seeing June again. Neal felt homesick, thinking about the wonderful woman who took him in off the streets. “But what if the Suits find us?”

 

“So what?” Neal countered. “It’s not like they can take me in for anything. If they try, I’m sure Eggsy would fly over and stare everyone down.”

 

“Galahad _does_ have a very intimidating glare.” Moz conceded. 

 

“And I would be glad to be your defence from the FBI.” Eggsy came up from behind them.

 

Mozzie started, eliciting a laugh from the agent. “Spies.” The balding man spat with no real heat. Neal knew he was pretty excited to be part of such a secret organisation. 

 

“Spies.” Eggsy agreed, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “Rox loves to use her mobile to track me down and then jump on me from whatever building I’m passing by. It’s her idea of a joke.”

 

“She does?” Neal asked incredulously. Even three months out of training and a drinking session with both Eggsy and Lancelot, he still couldn’t see the female agent as someone who could let her hair down, so to speak.

 

“Of course!” His mentor laughed. “Don’t worry though, it took me awhile to look at Merlin and not want to punch his face in.”

 

Neal chuckled at the joke, though he could tell that Eggsy was actually somewhat serious. “You’d really go and do that?” He asked.

 

“I’d _want_ to, yes, but Merlin’s taught me all about combat, so no, I actually _wouldn’t_ want to, if only to not get my face kicked in.”

 

“But you’d like to.”

 

“Oh, o’course. Under all that cashmere though, Merlin’s kickass.”

 

“Why thank you, Galahad.” The man himself commented through his glasses.

 

“Oh shit.” Eggsy paled rapidly.

 

“What?” Neal’s eyes were blown wide in concern; he’d never seen his mentor so shaken by anything before.

 

“Merlin could hear us the whole time. I think I forgot to turn my comms unit off.”

 

“You didn’t, lad. I just turned it back on.”

 


	5. return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, un-beta read, foul language, a few guns, bewildering appearance of a USHQ...

After handling one successful mission from Ector, two more from Galath and a boatload of more sims, it appeared that Merlin felt that Neal was ready to leave the nest. 

 

Almost everyone from the Merlin department, plus Ector, Galath, Arthur and Merlin himself, made it to the going away party that Eggsy arranged. It was a colossal mess of a celebration; balloons and streamers and cakes covering almost every surface of Ground Level 5. Merlin took one look at it, sighed and shot a stealthy glare at the bright young man that he unequivocally knew was responsible. Eggsy, being the superb agent he was, caught the glare and threw a cheeky wink back. Merlin rolled his eyes. Arthur looked slightly amused, his arm casually draped around his Galahad’s waist. 

 

It might’ve been the one of the best days in Neal’s life.

 

* * *

 

Eggsy had approached his protégé after the party, when he was packing up the sparse belongings in his quarters along with all of the baked goods that the department shoved on him. 

 

“We have one more going away present for you, Neal.” Was how he announced his presence. Neal jumped a few feet in the air, prompting Eggsy to laugh at how easy it was to sneak up on him. Neal grumbled good-naturedly in response.

 

“Spies, I swear…” he joked, absentmindedly putting a hand over his heart as if to check it was still beating. “So,” he sighed after his recovery, “what’s this going away present? If it’s more muffins, then swear to God I’ll get Merlin to assign you in freaking Siberia or somewhere equally miserable. He likes me now.”

 

Eggsy held up his hands in surrender, snickering. “It’s not muffins, Scout’s honour. It’s something a bit less _edible_ , let’s just say.” He held up a USB attachment.

 

Neal’s eyes went wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

 

“Well if you think it’s to get off your ridiculously unfashionable piece of shite, then I think I’d say you’re right.” Eggsy quipped back, handing off the little thing without a hesitation. 

 

“Thank you so… I can’t even say how _much_ -“ “No need, Caffrey,” Eggsy mercifully interrupted him, “just do us some good work, kay? You’re exceptional, and that’s not just ‘cause I’m your sponsor.” He winked. “Merlin and Arthur think so too. God knows Merl’d never let you off the leash to galavant off across the pond if you were anything short of _perfect_.” 

 

Neal barked a laugh. “He certainly wouldn’t, that’s for sure.”

 

“That’s the spirit, lad!” Eggsy beamed. “Now go on back to New York and knock the socks off Washington!”

 

“Sir yes sir!” Neal chuckled, matching his mentor’s megawatt smile. That was the second thing that made Neal’s day. All in all, it was a bittersweet- but mostly sweet- farewell from London. He knew he’d be making his way back sometime though; a visit was still required for Sara. Now that he was free from his anklet and somewhat at liberty to roam the world around the hectic hours of his new job, maybe there was a chance for him and Sara.

 

He hoped that she could still fall for the man he was when his head wasn’t so in the clouds anymore.

 

* * *

  

That was yesterday though, and Neal was actually just about to take off from London Heathrow this time. Kingsman apparently had enough pull that Arthur and Eggsy could get through airport security without having plane tickets, so they were at the gate, seeing him off. It wasn’t such a surprise to see Eggsy there, but seeing the head of the super-spy organisation that you happen to work for, at the airport purely to wish you safe travels- well, for a second, Neal thought they were firing him or something. But no, apparently whenever Eggsy was in London between missions, you couldn’t find one without the other. Lancelot’s words rang true. 

 

Over the course of Neal’s handling training, she had complained plenty to him about having sleepovers with Eggsy at his home, only to be interrupted by a dreary Harry Hart stumbling in to bury his face in Eggsy’s neck before promptly falling asleep. It had helped significantly to make him see the non-trainer side of Lancelot, though he still refused to call her Roxy. That was still too weird.

 

“Have a good flight, Caffrey!” “Yes, safe travels to you, Neal.”

 

“Thanks!” He let himself have one last look at the duo sending him off; Eggsy was full of energy as always, waving like a madman with a beaming grin on his face. Arthur grounded his partner with his arm slung around his waist and offered Neal a wave and a controlled smile, though he wore a smitten look whenever he spared a glance down at Eggsy. 

 

It wasn’t such a surprise that Neal felt a small pang of loss when his flight took off from London either. Eggsy, Merlin and the rest of the department were back there, after all. 

 

* * *

  

Being back in New York felt good. Especially without the anklet. Neal grinned wide, feeling free in his home city for the first time in a good while. No anklet, no FBI, no restrictions. He could go _anywhere_ now, within reason, of course. 

 

The first thing Neal did was swing by June’s place. He knew for certain that Mozzie would be there, catching up, since it was the sole reason that he wasn’t at the airport to greet Neal this time. Honestly, he couldn’t even blame him; he’d go for June’s company over his own anytime. Neal checked his pockets for his key and stealthily slipped in, feeling a bit childish and wanting to surprise Mozzie and June with his return.

 

He felt gratified when his body naturally avoided all of the creaky stairs and keeping his homecoming a surprise. June’s place was still home for him. There were cheery voices emanating from his loft and upon his dramatic entrance via slamming open the door, he just caught the tail end of Mozzie and June jumping three feet in the air. It made him grin.

 

“Why, Neal Caffrey!” June exclaimed, hand over heart. Neal flashed her a cheeky smile in reply and went over to hug her. 

 

“June,” he said, feeling like his homesickness for New York had been alleviated for the first time in months, “it’s good to be home.”

 

“And of course, you are _always_ welcome here.” June informed him warmly. “Couldn’t bear to move your things. Mozzie did say you’d be back and I decided to trust his word.” She said proudly. 

 

“Well, I thank you for your generosity. Paying rent’ll be easier than ever now, without a government salary.” Neal winked at her. 

 

June gasped in reply. “You got a new job?” Neal nodded, waiting for her reaction, and he wasn’t disappointed. She swept him up in another hug and whispered proudly to him, “I knew you could do it.”

 

“Thank you, June. It really means a lot.” He said sincerely, smiling vulnerably down at her. It was a thing he had for praise from those he cared about. Eggsy’d discovered it quite early on in his training and he was grateful to the young man for endeavouring to make him feel proud of himself as much as he possibly could. At first, Neal thought it was just Eggsy being kind; but during handling training, when he could finally see the relationship between Eggsy and Arthur, he realised that his mentor knew what it felt like, to want the firm approval from people he cared about and respected. Eggsy practically lit up when Arthur complemented his performance in the field and Neal understood. It was because Eggsy could fully comprehend how he felt and did his best to fill that gap for his initiate. Not for the first time, Neal was incredibly glad that Eggsy was the one to be his sponsor. 

 

“I’ll leave you boys to it,” June winked, bringing Neal out of his thoughts, “I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.”

 

“Thank you, June!” Neal and Mozzie chorused, beaming fondly at the woman who had become so important in their lives. 

 

As soon as June shut the door behind her, Moz pounced on him. “So?” he asked excitedly. “What did Merlin have in store for you?”

 

Neal made his friend sweat a bit before acquiescing. “I’m Prescott.” 

 

Mozzie gasped, “You’re Revere’s second in command? This is better than I expected!”

 

Revere was the US branch’s version of Merlin; the all-holy god and overseer of the US Merlin department. Prescott and Dawes were Revere’s second-in-command, both usually hand-picked by Revere himself, but this time, Merlin’s ‘recommendation’ forced the US branch’s hand in choosing their Prescott. All three higher-ups were named after the three riders in Paul Revere’s famous Midnight Ride, and actually, the only three people in the US Merlin department to be named. It was a high honour.

 

“Well, Kingsman’s building the US branch from the ground up after V-Day. The FBI barely escaped a major hit since they all have government issued SIM cards. Merlin says a lot of US Kingsman was dirty, so they razed it and started over.”

 

“Merlin trusts you with this, Neal. It’s monumental.”

 

“I know, Moz. I can’t do anything to let him down.”

 

* * *

  

The first few days at Kingsman was hectic; Neal was immediately given an office, almost like Merlin’s but smaller. He set out a few personal baubles and even more filing folders and bookshelves just to hold all of the handbooks and papers that his space would undoubtedly be filled with. 

 

There aren’t many handlers in the department yet, and the ones that are, are on rotation from UKHQ and therefore being worked to death for the two weeks they’re there before getting sent back. Neal got set with handling Washington’s mission on the West Coast, with everyone else running around frantically like chickens with their heads cut off doing other things. He handled the situation well, if he’s says so himself; and since Merlin hadn’t cut in and taken over the comms, it must’ve been a sign of a job at least mediocrely-well done. 

 

Revere turned out to be significantly less scary than Merlin, though _anyone_ would be less scary than Merlin, and got along with Neal quite well. He was a whippet-thin man, with a wit as sharp as one of Eggsy’s knives, a messy mop of hair that Merlin would never in a million years pull off and the brains to go with it. Neal likes him.

 

Dawes, on the other hand, was a short, no-nonsense Vietnamese woman. She had soft cheekbones and a pretty face, plus was probably smarter than the entire US Merlin department combined. Everyone, including Revere, was completely in awe of her and no matter who you were in USHQ, you knew to do whatever Dawes told you. It was just one of those unspoken rules that everyone learns sometime or another. Luckily, Neal learned straight off the bat- taking one look at the sharp-as-nails woman and immediately acquiescing to whatever she ordered him to do, even though on paper, they were ranked the same. Definitely one of his better decisions. 

 

And the paperwork. The _paperwork_. He couldn’t believe how many requisition forms he had to fill out. Ammunition ran out like it was never there in the first place, and the sheer amount to broken tech would be enough to set Merlin off on a rampage.

 

Neal couldn’t believe how good he had it at UKHQ, where all the agents had been whipped into proper shape with proper respect for equipment by the scary wizard. 

 

He had a feeling that Dawes was slowly, but surely achieving the same effect. But for now, there were requisition forms left and right. If he saw one more request for more bullets or grenade lighters, Neal was honest-to-god file a complaint to make agents fill out the request forms themselves. They were such a bitch to write. 

 

Actually, looking back on it, Merlin probably made the agents fill out the req forms themselves. Neal hadn’t seen hide nor hair of one of the blasted things in Merlin’s Merlin department. 

 

No wonder Arthur had stressed the conservation of bullets on Eggsy’s mission. Merlin would’ve went on one of his tangents if Galahad had wasted even one more bullet.

 

* * *

  

Neal was being careless, he knew, but it wasn’t really like he had any choice. The FBI would find out that he was on US soil _eventually_. He’d make a mistake with a CCTV camera and _whoops_ , they could storm June’s house. And of course he couldn’t let that happen to her.

 

So, he and Mozzie decided that the better alternative was just to _not_ try and hide from the cameras whenever they were out and about. It was surprisingly not a lot- Kingsman took up quite the chunk of both their time. The FBI could approach him on the street if they wanted to, take him into bureau headquarters, and Neal was ninety-nine percent sure that he’d get off without any consequences. Mozzie had it on good word that Galahad was in New York training recruits for the Virginia position at the moment and if the FBI were as vigilant as Mozzie claimed them to be, their grab-and-go of Neal would happen any day now. After his abrupt exit a few months ago via one Eggsy Unwin, they knew that Peter and the team would definitely be on the lookout. 

 

So it wasn’t really a surprise when Diana and Jones came at him with guns out one day on the way to the market, demanding for him to put his hands in the air. Luckily, Neal had the foresight to call Kingsman HQ as soon as he’d seen them come around the corner. He went along with it, knowing that he could come in on assault of a government agent if he tried to use his training. Even though Kingsman could still get him off for that, it would be a hell of a lot easier on Eggsy if Neal couldn’t be held at the FBI for any other charges than _existing_. Anyone affiliated with Kingsman _did_ have diplomatic immunity after all, though Peter Burke was stubborn as a mule.

 

…plus, it wouldn’t do well to have Merlin upset at him for being impulsive and Eggsy-like. Only Eggsy could get off with being Eggsy-like, Neal very well knew. Merlin was unfairly fond of the boy, though it was probably fondness that could only come from saving the world with each other. And blowing up a couple hundred heads in vivid technicolour whilst they were at it. Eggsy had proudly and half-drunkenly shown him the mission records during their twenty-four hours and thereafter, Neal wasn’t sure to be awestruck or terrified by both his mentor and Merlin. He’d made the wise choice and picked to be a healthy mixture of both. Hadn’t regretted it since.

 

Being brought into the FBI in handcuffs was surprisingly less scary than the last time. This time, he had good people on his side and his conscience and record was clean… for the most part.

 

Jones took him down to the interrogation room and sat him down on the other side of the desk. 

 

Neal kicked back and relaxed, slipping out of his handcuffs easier than he had before. Kingsman, more specifically Eggsy, had honed his escape skills to better than ever through sheer repetition. The _amount_ of times they had to escape from hostage situations in training…

 

He assumed he was waiting for Peter, hoping ever-so-slightly that the ‘escape’ from his sentence didn’t earn his former handler any black marks in the FBI’s book. Arthur and Merlin should’ve taken care of that though, and if they had let it sit, Neal was mostly sure that Eggsy didn’t. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Kingsman slipped in a recommendation for Peter to become ASAC or something of the sort upon Hughes’ retirement either. They seemed to have their fingers in a lot of pies.

 

“Neal Caffrey. Third time.” Peter greeted him as he slipped in, the only wall that was actually made of glass. He was sure that there were agents outside of the two-way mirrors to watch the showdown. 

 

“Peter. What a surprise.” Neal replied cooly, casually handing his former handler the handcuffs that Diana slapped on him. “Do me a favour and give these back to Diana, would you? I couldn’t bear if she’d lost them.”

 

Peter gave him a dark look and snatched the open handcuffs from his former CI’s grasp. “What the hell do you think you’re doing back in New York? Hacking your anklet, _cutting_ your anklet, and what? You think you can just _stroll_ the streets of my city like nothing’s wrong?” He hissed. “You could go back to prison!”

 

“ _Actually_ , yes. I believe I can.” Neal replied defiantly, leaning forward in his chair, giving the illusion of wanting to claim dominance in the conversation. “Because _you_ can’t hold me on anything.”

 

“We can have you on illegal entry, illegal residence or escape from prison. Your choice.”

 

“How about none?” he replied, bold as brass.

 

Peter smirked, “Nice try, Neal. We can let you wait until you’re ready to talk.” Cutting the conversation short, he abruptly turned to leave the room, probably half-expecting Neal to ask him not to leave and offer him a desperate deal. He had to admire Peter; it was definitely a strategy that would’ve felled him if he was working alone, and certainly got him during his first prison sentence.

 

This time? Neal had assurance that Eggsy would come for him. 

 

He let Peter leave.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, would anyone actually be interested if i wrote a switch-y-around-y thing with neal being the one to teach eggsy a few things during his childhood in london?


	6. arrest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, un-beta read, some mean FBI agents, creation of a USHQ...

“Agent Burke, I’m terribly sorry we got off to such a rough start. I think we may be having a slight misunderstanding.” Came the brisk, charming voice of Galahad, not even twenty minutes later, as he accompanied Peter down to the interrogation room. Neal grinned; he _knew_ Kingsman would send someone to come get him out. All the better that it was Galahad, one of the most sought-after knights in Kingsman's arsenal along with Lancelot, especially after their impressive work in the wake of the V-Day fiasco. 

 

“Have you been in contact with this man, Neal?” Peter asked him upon his re-arrival, directing the knight over to Neal’s side of the table- the guilty party’s side of the table. Galahad went placidly, pretending not to notice the slight the FBI agent was offering him. Well, manners maketh man, and all that. The Kingsman was made up of nothing but polite courtesy and effortless violence.

 

He waved pleasantly. “Hello Neal.”

 

“Hey Galahad.”

 

“So you have.” Peter concluded. “He isn’t a known criminal in the FBI’s books, but _surprise_ ,” he continued in a distinctly unsurprised voice, “he doesn’t come up with _anything_ in _any_ database, other than a highly classified file with a blurry picture and the name ‘Galahad’.” The pointed statement was probably being made at one of the agents outside the two-way mirror, most likely the one to run the background check on the Kingsman. Neal felt a little bad for them. It wasn’t their fault they weren’t even nearly as good as Merlin and he knew for a fact that Merlin encrypted all the senior agents’ files all by his wizarding self. 

 

“Well yes, I _did_ just call him Galahad.” Neal told Peter with guileless blue eyes.

 

“A classified file? To the FBI? Your benefactor is high up and I want to know who he is. I can get you a deal if you give him up.” Peter told Galahad frankly, ignoring Neal completely and focusing on who he thought was the bigger fish. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Galahad definitely had a hell of a lot more pull than Neal did in Kingsman. 

 

“My apologies if I don’t _give him up_ , sir. We’re not the bad guys.” 

 

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.” Peter said in a particularly unapologetic voice.

 

Galahad looked pensive for a moment before suddenly asking, “Is it because you don’t trust him to not be what you consider a criminal?”

 

Peter visibly struggled for an answer for several moments before nodding. “Yes. I believe that under the right supervision, Neal has the capacity to do good. Under _no_ supervision, then no, I don’t trust him to not be a criminal.”

 

“Ouch.” Neal remarked dryly, keeping up the appearance of lounging back carelessly, though Galahad threw him a quick look of concern, knowing that what Peter said stung.

 

Peter shrugged nonchalantly. “Truth hurts. Buck up, cowboy.”

 

“Well Agent Burke,” Galahad cut in breezily, “I should be glad to assure you that we _are_ , in fact, the _right_ supervision. There’s our problem solved. Gentlemen, if we may?” He turned first to Peter, then to the two-way mirror, brows raised expectantly. 

 

“Sorry,” Peter said, not sounding particularly sorry, “but no. I don’t think you’re doing anything but encouraging Neal’s criminal tendencies. Release him back to FBI custody and we can peacefully go our separate ways.”

 

“Sorry,” Galahad snarked, reminiscent of the FBI agent, “but no. I find it highly offensive you would even consider us to be working against the greater good of the world. Some slack must be cut, I believe, for your unawareness of our organisation, but believe me; we do work for the betterment of society.  


 

“That’s what every criminal says.” Peter told them. It was actually true for a good fraction of offenders out there, but the best criminals were fully aware of what he was doing; that they were doing wrong, breaking laws that were there for a reason. Neal was definitely one of the best and he was well aware that he did it for the rush. 

 

Out of the blue, Galahad’s eyes unfocused momentarily and after comprehending whatever came up on the HUD of his glasses, he smiled pleasantly. 

 

“Well this has been intriguing, Agent Burke. A glimpse into the mind of an FBI agent, if you will. Should you excuse us this time, we’ll be going now. If you have any concerns, you can talk to your superior, I can talk to your superior, whatever makes you comfortable.” The knight proved to be a gentleman even in the worst of times.

 

Peter narrowed his eyes and nodded, pulling Galahad out by his elbow and motioning for the agents behind the two-way mirrors to grab Neal too. He took them up to the ASAC’s office and plopped them down in the two chairs directly in front of Hughes. 

 

“Galahad.” Hughes said, looking the slightest bit apprehensive for the firecracker that he was probably warned that the volatile agent could be. His temper was legendary when ignited and apparently he'd only been an agent for a few years. There were already four different stories about Galahad's Copenhagen incident from last month going around the Merlin department, last time Neal checked. And they just kept getting more and more far-fetched with every retelling. Galahad had been understandably smug, Merlin was obviously exasperated and Arthur proved to be most certainly amused.  

 

“Reese,” Peter breathed confusedly, “you know him?”

 

“After Caffrey got pulled, yes.” Hughes replied, nodding to his agent. He redirected his attention back to Galahad. “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience, I’m sure Peter thought that Caffrey failedyour initiation and was back in New York, no longer under your protection.”

 

Neal shot a little glance over at Galahad and he can see that the young man knew Hughes was lying plain as day, but was too polite to say anything about it. Let him cover for Burke if he wanted to. “A miscommunication on our part, sir. We apologise for the trouble we've caused.” He said smoothly, throwing in a charming smile for good measure. 

 

Hughes nodded, acquiescing to Kingsman’s significant pull over them. The FBI no doubt needed Kingsman to handle all the dirty jobs that they weren’t able to approve without compromising the spotless mantel of their entire organisation. “It wasn’t any, Galahad. I assume we can then take Caffrey off the active asset list?”

 

Galahad nodded in return. “You have our gratitude for keeping Neal’s cover for the time he was away. It was too risky to let anyone know that he was truly gone.”

 

“It was no trouble.” Well that certainly meant it was trouble. “I’m sure you have better things to be doing right now though.” A clear dismissal if Neal ever saw one. 

 

The knight elegantly got to his feet and executed a small bow in both Peter and Hughes’ directions, gesturing for Neal to rise too, taking quick leave of FBI headquarters. Neal could feel the stares of the entire White Collar Division on his way out. Of course they’d still see him as a criminal. It didn’t escape his notice that Peter followed the both of them out either. 

 

“Well that was eventful,” Eggsy quipped, a wry smile making its way onto his face. Apparently he’d noticed their little follower too. 

 

Neal let out a quiet laugh, “You can say _that_ again.” They murmured over a couple other, trivial things in an attempt to look unconcerned with the whispering going on around them.

 

“Wait!” Came a loud voice from behind. Eggsy and Neal turned in tandem to face Peter, the flaps in the back of their coats flying with the sideways force. “Galahad. Why can’t we access your file?”

 

Eggsy winked, smirking in a way that Neal had long since learned meant _trouble_. And also Merlin's blood pressure problems. “I’m afraid it’s above your paygrade, Agent Burke.” Was the smug retort. The little knave had probably been saving that one up for ages now. 

 

Peter’s jaw visibly clenched and Neal fought down a snicker, just barely managing to keep his expression as tepid as possible. Eggsy didn’t even make an attempt, letting his shit-eating grin speak for itself. “Let’s go, Caffrey. I’m sure we’ll see you around, Agent Burke.”

 

“Sir, yes sir!” Neal barked jokingly, following Eggsy right out the doors of the bureau.

 

* * *

 

Once they were out of the building, Neal let go a bit of his bravado. Being back in the White Collar office put him off a little. “I didn’t think Peter would be so harsh with me.”

 

“Well,” Eggsy winced, “that was sort of our fault. If we hadn’t taken you so suddenly-“

 

“Hey, don’t go blaming yourself for it, Unwin. I've built myself a rep, I’m just reaping the rewards.” Neal interrupted him in a deceptively casual tone. He knew that Eggsy knew he was still beating himself up for everything.

 

Eggsy sighed, exasperated and fond. “Can’t convince you otherwise, can I?”

 

“Nope.” Neal grins for a split second at his mentor. He had it on very good word that he’d given Eggsy extreme levels of stress through sheer worry at the exploits he pulled during training. Lancelot had shown him video records of her worry-filled conversations with him, and he recognised the tone Eggsy used now from Lance’s feeds. Apparently Galahad had never taken such a shine to any of his proposals before Neal.

 

“Suppose I’ll just get you back to HQ then. I know it’s your day off, but I honestly can’t be arsed to walk back to your apartment.” Eggsy grinned. “‘Sides, I’m pretty sure Mozzie’s in today.”

 

Neal laughed, “Surely you’ve convinced me now! Yes, fine, fine. Take me HQ.”

 

Eggsy let out a dramatic sigh in a show of his relief. “Thank fuckin’ Jesus. Our train’s just ‘round here somewhere. We can do a dodge of security cams next street over.”

 

“Sounds like a plan.” They didn’t want any old FBI agent finding out where Kingsman was located after all, and Neal was a hundred and ten percent sure that Peter had assigned them a tail. 

 

“Oh look,” Eggsy said pointedly, “the nice man from your old office.” He didn’t even have to conspicuously rubberneck to catch Jones following them. “I was just waiting for an appropriate time to bring him up.”

 

“Of course you were,” Neal replied, rolling his eyes. “Trust _you_ to leave everything to last minute.”

 

Eggsy cackled, suddenly pulling Neal down a veritable maze of back-alleys, rooftops and basements. If Neal hadn’t known New York even half as well as he did, he would certainly have been horribly lost. But luckily he wasn’t, and had spent the last few years of his life learning this city backwards and forwards. He wasn’t all too surprised when they popped up a block away from the Kingsman shop, though he was sure Jones was probably still wondering where they went. 

 

Neal was sure that Peter would call him sometime though, even though the FBI no longer had any of his contact details on record. He’d snuck a burner phone in Peter's pocket on the way out and he was sure that the agent would connect it to him sooner or later. 

 

“Coast’s clear and shop’s just ‘round the bend. Arthur advocated incredibly strongly for the removal of CCTV in this area around a radius of a hundred metres.” Eggsy informed him proudly. 

 

“Wow,” Neal said, impressed, “can’t believe the FBI would fold to a demand _that_ high.”

 

“Arthur didn’t give ‘em any choice,” Eggsy said unsympathetically. “‘Sides, I think we’re good enough to take care of any crime in the area.” He teased, swinging his weaponising umbrella exaggeratedly as he walked. Neal made sure to keep well out of the lethal umbrella's way; he saw what it could do firsthand in one of Ector's mission feeds and  _boy_ , he did  _not_ want that thing even grazing his skin. Especially not after Merlin's obsessive  _I must improve every single weapon in Kingsman's arsenal_ phase that he went through every few months. 

 

The shop was, as promised, right around the corner and Neal let Eggsy pull him along. It was a stroll straight through the front door for the two of them with the security of knowing there was no Big Brother watching them. 

 

The shopkeeper, Ross, greeted the pair genially and let them get on with their business, as per usual. 

 

The FBI didn’t even have a clue.

 

* * *

 

“Damn it, Jones! How could you have lost them?” 

 

“I’m sorry, Peter. Caffrey and the kid turned a corner and just disappeared into thin air.”

 

Peter sighed, “It’s not your fault. We’ll get them next time.”

 

“There will be no next time, Peter.” Hughes intervened. “Caffrey’s off the wanted list and has diplomatic immunity from any suspected crimes unless we’re told otherwise. He’s working for the good guys now.” 

 

“Reese. _We’re_ the good guys. We have no idea who that British kid is and what the hell he wants with Neal.”

 

“Peter.” Hughes refuted tiredly. “ _The British kid_ is high up and he thinks Neal is good enough for a job with them. They’re the good guys too, or the brass would never approve diplomatic immunity.”

 

“Fine.” Peter breathed. “We’ll no longer use FBI resources for this investigation.” 

 

“Good. Stay out of it, Peter. It’s for your own sake.” Peter nodded distractedly, already moving to go back to his office. 

 

Maybe it was time that he and Mozzie had a little catching-up with each other. He reached into his pocket for his cellphone and pulled out-

 

-oh that little bastard. Peter pulled out the primitive flip phone that was definitely _not_ in his jacket an hour before. He powered it on and checked the contact list. The only entry didn’t have a name, but it didn’t really need one.

 

Peter was two-hundred percent sure it was Neal-freaking-Caffrey, the ever-present pain in his ass.

 

He waited until he was home to call the number. 

 


	7. reconnaissance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: un-beta'd, foul language, some explosions, implied death of minor characters

Neal let the burner phone ring three times before he picked up, pretending to have nothing to lose even as his stomach tied itself in knots. He made to move onto his balcony, to feel the assurance that he had the _higher ground_ , so to speak. After all, Peter was down there... somewhere. 

 

“Hey Peter.” He drawled, even forcing his body language into a false ease though Peter couldn’t see him. It helped to keep his voice even and relaxed. 

 

“Neal.” Was the curt reply. “Why did you leave me a phone?”

 

“Because, Peter,” Neal said in a faux-innocent voice, “I really wanted to _talk_ to you. Isn’t that enough reason?”

 

“For you? No.” The agent told him flatly. “What do you want, Neal?” He let out the sigh of the long-suffering. 

 

Neal took a deep breath, letting go of his defensive persona. “I just wanted you to know that I’m not the bad guy here. I was more than a hundred percent sure that once I got back, you’d think that and I wanted to make sure you know I’m not. It’s not my problem whether you believe me or not, but I’m cleared and I think I’m doing good. Your definition. So,” Neal finished with a sigh, “ball’s in your court.”

 

Peter was silent for a good few seconds. “I wish I could believe you Neal, but…”

 

“I understand, Peter.” Neal said, sounding downtrodden over the line. “I won’t bother you anymore and I’ll try to stay out of your way. Just don’t come looking for me. It won’t do either of us any good.”

 

“Neal-“

 

“Goodbye, Peter.” 

 

And he hung up, not even bothering to hang around for a response. He couldn’t let Peter Burke get to him again. If he allowed Peter in one more time, who knows what kind of chances he could blow? He’d probably give in and tell Peter all about Kingsman, and then where would he be? Eggsy would be disappointed and Neal would never be able to get that back. Besides, how could he even be sure that Peter would believe him? He sure as hell didn’t when Neal truthfully told him that he was completely, certainly, definitely fighting for the good guys now, and when he didn’t even have the clearance to officially know about Kingsman, where would Neal’s proof be anyways?

 

He chose Kingsman this time, just as he was beginning to be quite sure that he’d be choosing Kingsman for the rest of his life.

 

* * *

  

The next day at work was pretty cathartic. 

 

Neal spent a good six hours yelling down Massachusetts’ comms line as the agent was getting shot at for _not following his handler’s directions and being stupid enough to walk right into a mafia deal, idiot!_

 

Suffice to say, Massachusetts paid for his mistakes, and still owed Neal a good bottle of wine. Or five. It was an established Kingsman custom to pay the handlers in the currency of good alcohol and various other mind-bogglingly expensive things, most likely started by Nimue, who was now a regular drinker from the stress she had from taking care of all her poor agents. Upon arrival back from Moscow, Neal was gifted with three bottles of some good vodka.

 

He decided to forgive Chase this one time. And maybe every time the guy came back from a country with fine food and drink. That evening, Neal put up his official wish list on the agency network, as was the norm for all the handlers. It was the easiest resource for agents to look up whenever they needed to get on their handler’s good side either pre or post mission. Pretty ingenious, if anyone deemed to ask Neal. He should send an anonymous tip-off to the FBI about it. It would probably improve agency efficiency ten-fold if more of the agents were on better terms with their supervisors. 

 

“Prescott!” Merlin’s brogue erupted from his speakers.

 

“Merlin!” Neal exclaimed. “Oh I missed you ever-so-much! How could I have thought I could live without you, my love!” He laughed.

 

“Oi, shut your mouth, you dunderhead!” The wizard grumbled good-naturedly. 

 

“So what’s up?” Neal asked, throwing his rubber-band ball up in the air obnoxiously and catching it.

 

“Aight lad-”

 

“Oh wait! Merlin, did you and Arthur go to that boring wood carving seminar thing? Eggsy told me about it and I mean, _I_ do boring stuff like cheese tasting and wine tastings, but _that_ …” Neal giggled.

 

“Shut it, we have a problem-”

 

“Oh, what kinda problem?”

 

“I’d get ta telling ye, if you’d _stop interrupting me_.”

 

“Oops, sorry. Carry on.”

 

“Right then. As I was saying, we have a problem. Short a handler and we need another for something important. It’s in the States, so your territory. Can ye take over the comms for a couple hours tomorrow so that Morgana can do her bit of recon?”

 

“Sure thing. I don’t have anything on my schedule for tomorrow and if something pops up, now _I’ve_ got a network of minions.” Neal said proudly. He’d always been jealous of Merlin being able to have little interns and mini-magicians that he could foist some of his workload onto.

 

“Proud of ye, lad.” He could _hear_ Merlin’s eye roll in the sentence. “Aw shucks, you’re making me blush.” Neal threw back sarcastically. 

 

“Mouth shut now. Morgana will patch you over when she has to go. Now I have more important things to go do…”

 

“Wait, who’s the agent?” Neal asked, just before Merlin could cut the videochat.

 

“Ector.” Merlin answered succinctly, proceeding to hang up before receiving a reply.

 

“Aw yes!” Neal spun around in his chair happily. He and Ector got along like a house on fire and it would be nice to spend a few hours officially handling the snarky Welsh agent. Neal would choose Ector over stupid Massachusetts any day. At least Alexander could respect that Neal was a trained handler too, and by Merlin no less, despite his relative inexperience. Massachusetts hadn’t even been an agent for as long as Xander was and the idiot had the nerve to act like he knew better than his handler.

 

Actually, Neal was pretty sure only Eggsy and Arthur could pull _that_ off; Eggsy because he was _Eggsy_ and Arthur because he was the longest serving field agent in Kingsman’s history by far. Plus, the dude wasn’t the leader of a band of super-spiesfor nothing.

 

He went to sleep that night excited for tomorrow to come. Maybe he’d even go visit Mozzie in R&D during his lunch break. His friend had been holed up in his department for a good three days, working tirelessly on this prototype for a tiepin that held a potent knockout gas when activated. June had been asking after him, so Neal resolved to bring it up with his friend. The guy could only skive off of so many Scrabble Thursdays before June resorted to forcing Neal to play with her. 

 

Cause well, he liked to think he was at least half-decent at Scrabble, but his ego really couldn't take all the hits June landed during their half-hour session of word games that was never-to-be-repeated.

 

* * *

  

Neal whooped happily into Ector’s comm, jubilating in the responding shout as the agent blew up a bridge in the backwoods of Nevada. “Bloody hell, I’m gonna get so much shit from Merlin after this.” Ector sighed happily, casually lobbing one more grenade lighter over his shoulder at the three leftover henchmen from some odd Czech weapon-dealer organisation. 

 

“You _so_ are.” Neal agreed joyfully, already snickering at the mental image of the burly, six-and-a-half foot tall agent being totally whupped by five feet and eleven-and-a-quarter inches of bald Scottishness. To be fair though, Merlin _did_ have quite a presence. He learned that quite well in his secondary training. Even though the physicality of it wasn’t nearly as tough as being a recruit, getting yelled at by Merlin would suddenly fill anyone with inspiration to _get up off their lazy arse_ , as the wizard himself would put it.

 

“Any evac coming or is it a trek to the nearest civilisation?” Ector inquired tiredly.

 

“Nah, I got people coming,” Neal replied, “a helicopter should be there in five.” He quickly sent off a message to the pilot, telling him in the politest way possible to hurry the fuck up in getting to Ector and to have a med team ready; the guy was sustaining serious injuries _in the middle of fuck nowhere, you assholes_.

 

Merlin would be pretty proud of him.

 

* * *

 

Being Prescott though, was _not_ all sunshines and rainbows, and more often than not, Neal would spend the night at HQ since Revere didn’t trust him to make it back to June’s all by his lonesome. Probably’d pass out halfway there or something, were his exact words. Neal’d hit him over the head for that and Revere just sauntered out, smirking like the little shit he was.

 

Being Prescott _also_ didn’t mean just sitting behind a desk, yelling at agents all day either, much to Neal’s relief. Going through recruit training _and_ Merlin’s how-to-be-a-handler 101 made Neal a pretty hot commodity in the reconnaissance. Recon was now treated as a low-key mission and after much deliberation from Arthur when he rewrote agency policy, was also placed under the umbrella of the handlers. After all, they were responsible for putting together mission dossiers and had to know their assignments inside-out, so why couldn’t they collect their information too? It put Merlin at a lot more ease knowing that his people were the ones handling the more sensitive information now, instead of the slightly more faulty agents. Call him biased, but Merlin's minions were trained hella-good for information gathering; let the agents stick to professionally blowing shit up.

 

Now _that_ was a decision that Neal supported; it was a win-win for both sides. The agents wouldn't have to waste their skills, schmoozing with rich snobs and trying to get information out of them, or waiting in cafes and street corners just to catch a glimpse of a world-renowned criminal exiting somewhere-or-another. 

 

Neal, on the other hand, _loved_ it. He felt power in that he could charm just about anyone into doing anything he wanted to, and well, the American black market dealers knew of _the_  Neal Caffrey _very_ well. And _the_  Neal Caffrey himself certainly wasn’t above using his already-well-built reputation for the greater good of Kingsman. It was a pretty perfect symbiotic relationship, as far as symbiotic relationships went.

 

So, he was out on a Wednesday night, with Sophia from R&D in his ear as he navigated through the exclusive dealing of a Tomahawk missile. Stupid Americans and their big guns, Neal thought disgustedly to himself. He couldn’t stay too disgusted for long though, since the sheer fact of the matter was that this kind of stuff was what kept him in a job. So he settled on disgusted but grudgingly thankful.

 

“Should I be overly charming or barely courteous?” Neal murmured into his glasses frame as he casually took them off and wiped the lenses. He put them back on and Sophia’s voice laughed into his ear that he might as well lay on the Caffrey charm and ensure his goodwill with the benefactors of the deal since the agency might need another in later on. Neal shrugged in reply, making sure he was in good view of a reflective surface so that Sophia would catch the quick lift of his shoulders. 

 

And so it went. Neal made sure to flash his pearly whites at just about everyone he came across and engage all the power-players in a light conversation that he somehow managed to keep on them, rather than reveal too much about himself. The mysterious, alluring persona always made for a good time and memories that stuck. It probably helped that he had a pretty face too. Totally not ashamed to admit it either.

 

Sophia sniggered in his ear for the entire night, pointing out all the attractive girls and calling dibs on them when they were _off-the-charts_ , as she said. Neal chuckled at his handler’s antics and she pinpointed two of the men that he was conversing with who practically swooned as he flashed his dimples. He had to clamp down on a laugh that threatened to escape. Two laughs in a row would be very _bad_ , he had to remind himself. One spontaneous laugh could be attributed to a quirkily desirable thing going on, but two indicated something close to insanity or chronic hallucinations. Neal knew that for a fact. He’d steered clear of a few of those types of people in his time.

 

Upon the event of the actual bidding, Neal made sure to note down all of the people who bid and whether they were bidding semi-seriously or really went all out. Anyone who he couldn’t put a name to a face, Sophia made sure to run through the databases and get a match on. No one even noticed Neal’s frantic rubbernecking around the room, probably just put it down as a young man at a bid like this for the first time, watching it like a tennis match.

 

Well too bad for them, Neal was actually planning on putting them all out of business, the bastards.

 

All in all, it was a good night. Mozzie would certainly get a story when Neal got back from his debriefing. 

 

God, he really needed some alcohol. Pretending to be enamoured with some of those assholes really took it out of a guy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psssst- super sorry for the long wait between chapters, everyone


	8. collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: un-beta'd, foul language, some guns, mentions of white collar crime

It was on another recon mission that Neal ran into Peter. He supposed it was only a matter of time. After all, they were both running assignments in the New York area, so it wasn't too far-fetched to say that they'd  _eventually_ run into eachother, though Neal had hoped that perhaps Dawes had a good sense of timing since he hadn't had any run-ins thus far.

 

Ironically, this one was a gala that was taking place at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Because of _course_ it would be at an art gallery. Neal spotted Peter first, but it was only a few seconds later when he saw the FBI agent’s eyes widen furiously and he immediately made his way over in the most inconspicuous way possible. 

 

“Ne-“ Peter spat.

 

“First, let me explain,” Neal cut him off smoothly, “we don’t want to make a scene. If I’m right, and I know I am, you’re here for business, not pleasure. Well I am too. Don’t shout, I’m not here to steal anything. I’m on the clock right now for the _good_ guys and if you don’t rat _me_ out, I won’t rat _you_ out and _maybe_ we can be beneficial to each other. How does that sound?”

 

He was surprised when Peter actually contemplated the idea instead of throwing another hissy fit and storming off. “Fine. But we do things by the book. No shenanigans and don’t even _think_ of robbing the place!”

 

Neal sighed, “I already said that I wasn’t here for that.”

 

“Forgive me if I can’t take that for granted, Neal. Remember, now that I’m here, I can get you in on any suspicious behaviour I detect from you tonight and the Bureau will sanction it.”

 

“I doubt it,” he replied serenely and continued on with Peter’s complexion was about to cross over into a violent scarlet, “but I’m not here for anything nefarious. I am _the_ definition of by the book now- I swear you won’t get anything on me. I'm squeaky clean.”

 

“We’ll see about that.” Peter grumbled. “Right then,” he said, getting straight to business, “the FBI wants _that_ man over there; Thomas Jørgensen. We have reason to believe that he’s a known fence for that Dürer a couple months back.”

 

Neal hummed, “I think I heard about that one. I can send you some intel if I can get my hands on any, if you want.”

 

Peter barely deliberated before biting out a grudging _yes, please_.

 

Sophia sent a text to his HUD, asking if he really wanted an intel packet on Jørgensen sent to the FBI c/o Peter Burke. Neal nodded discretely as an affirmative, knowing that his handler would pick up the movement. She sent a thumbs up back along with a semi-transparent image of her clicking the send button from a private, untraceable email account to pburke@ic.fbi.gov.

 

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” The ex-con beamed. The Bureau agent rolled his eyes annoyedly in return. 

 

“So, you want to corner and question Jørgensen or is he planning on taking something from this exhibition? If he’s into Dürer, this shouldn’t really be his scene…” Neal mused, eyes darting around the room in an attempt to see what he was missing.

 

“No, you’re right. Just try to observe, maybe corner him somewhere if it’s not to obvious. What’re you here for?”

 

“Just casing the place and people.” Neal said absentmindedly. “We can get on Jørgensen soon, he looks pretty fidgety. I’d say he’ll be making a break for the bathroom soon or he’s got some sticky fingers and wants a little something from another room. It’s not exactly well-guarded here.”

 

“Casing the place?” Peter inquired in a dangerous voice. 

 

“No, no, no, not for me. It’s classified information, but I can still help you look for your little fence.”

 

Peter grumbled and muttered something about deception and Hughes before brusquely nodding and returning his attention to Jørgensen. “Hm, you’re right. He _is_ getting pretty fidgety though I don’t think it’s anything to do with his bladder.”

 

“Yeah I know, he’s only just started trying to take in the entire room. The guy has such bad technique.” Neal tutted, as if their target was an errant schoolboy. His expression suddenly turned sour and his eyes went unfocused as he stared off into the distance for a split second. “ _Yes_ I realise that it’s not part of the mission.” He snapped. “I can do both at once! Just go on standby, I’ll tell you if I need you.” Neal sighed. "I'm muting you now."

 

The one-sided exchange earned him a raised brow. “Trouble in paradise?” Peter smirked.

 

Neal huffed, “ _No_ , it’s just you. It’s not like you’ve done anything to gain the trust of my handler on this since you’ve done nothing but snub me. They don’t want me assisting you and are telling me to just focus on what _I’m_ supposed to do.”

 

“And are you?”

 

“No. I feel I owe you more than that.” Neal said coldly. “Plus, if it gets you out of here quicker, I’m all in.” He added. 

 

Peter winced. Fair was fair, after all. It wasn’t like he was acting grateful for Neal’s company. But fair was still fair though, and Neal hadn’t exactly projected that they were best friends now, either.

 

“How are you communicating with your base, by the way? I didn’t see any pens or blatant wrist-to-mouth actions on you.”

 

Neal smirked. “That’s for me to know and for you to keep your nose out of. _However_ I can see _your_ lovely pen and I’ll take a chance on this one,” he slid the ink-less device out of Peter’s pocket and held it up to his mouth, “hey Diana, hi Jones.”

 

“Brat.” Peter muttered, snatching the pen back out of Neal’s grasp and straight back into his suit pocket when he heard his two agents chime in with replies to his former ‘consultant’. Neal casually handed back the agent’s wallet too, smiling triumphantly in the other direction. He could _hear_ Peter’s teeth grind and grinned even wider. _Oh_ , victory was _sweet_.

 

* * *

 

They ended up cornering Jørgensen in the middle of an empty corridor leading to the mens’ room. 

 

“So _Thomas_ ,” Peter said in a nonchalantly-nonchalant tone, “I have a few questions for you.”

 

“ _We_ ,” Neal fake-coughed into his hand, “remember, I helped you.”

 

“Whatever.” Peter rolled his eyes. “ _We_ have some questions for you. Happy now?”

 

“Absolutely ecstatic.”

 

“What do you want?” Jørgensen asked nervously, expression cautious at the sight of Peter’s half-revealed gun holster as he swept his suit jacket back with his forearms in a display of dominance. 

 

“We just want to know where you got that Dürer and _maybe_ we’ll include in your trial that you assisted in a Bureau investigation and recommend a shortened sentence. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Let’s not waste time with the denial game.” 

 

“Subtle, Peter.” Neal snorted. “Oh,” the FBI agent shot back, “you think you can do better? Be my guest.”

 

“Right then.” The younger man stepped forward confidently as the other stepped back mockingly. “Thomas. You can call me Neal. That’s Peter and he’s a rude asshole.” He started off bluntly, expression completely serious with a dash of empathy and humour. “Don’t even think about it, Peter. I’ve taken over, remember?”

 

Another audible tooth-grind. Neal grinned charmingly. 

 

“Now, can you tell me where you got the Dürer? There’s not really any point in pretending we’re _not_ here for that, since _Peter_ here gave us away within the first two seconds.”

 

“That was a very pointed comment, Caffrey.”

 

“Wait,” Jørgensen perked up, “you’re _Neal Caffrey_? Like the guy who pulled the Fiorentino thing?”

 

“The one and only.” Neal winked. “And I have a few guesses where you could’ve gotten your hands on _that_ particular Dürer too.”

 

“It was in the Victoria and Albert.” He replied immediately. “Pretty lax security, free entry, fairly crowded, but not enough to get in the way. It was perfect.” Neal nodded in full agreement.

 

“And where’d you get the forgery?” He inquired.

 

“Friend from my old neighbourhood.”

 

“Care to name any names? I _am_ apparently the best in the business, after all. Maybe I’d like to know my competition. Enemies close, and all that.” He winked to show it was all jokes.

 

Jørgensen hesitated for just a moment before he pulled out a pen and a scrap piece of paper, scrawling a number on it. “Call this and ask for Eldridge, tell him Tom sent you.”

 

“Cheers.” Neal replied, stowing the paper safely in his pants pocket, already planning on throwing it away later so Peter couldn’t get to it; he, on the other hand, already had the number memorised. Neal could feel Peter go for a hesitant attempt to pick the number out of his pocket, but swatted the hand away just in time, letting Peter know that he didn’t have the upper hand in this kind of thing.

 

In the small spat, Jørgensen turned tail and left. Neal didn’t bother going after him and blasély disarmed Peter when he tried. “Your guys can just make the arrest from outside. No need to go after him.” He explained innocently. 

 

The FBI agent only shot Neal a harsh glare and pulled out his recording pen and commanded directly into its speaker, “Jørgensen’s as good as confessed. Just about to exit on the southwest side. You guys are authorised to make the arrest. Let’s go, let’s go!”

 

“Bossy,” Neal commented, murmuring into his glasses frame that his casing of the place was over and asking whether HQ needed any more images. He received a noise of dissent for his troubles. 

 

“Well then, Peter, I suppose this is _au revoir_.” Neal said, turning on his heel, not unlike Jørgensen had done earlier. Peter let him go too. 

 

* * *

 

“I just don’t _know_ , El.” Peter sighed, scrubbing a tired hand over his eyes. “He was gone for so long and he just pops back up, claiming that he’s changed. Should I believe him or not? God knows I _want_ to- so badly.”

 

His wife sighed too and shrugged helplessly at him. “Just follow your instincts, honey. They haven’t led you wrong yet. And maybe give Neal a chance? Maybe he _has_ changed. You said he didn’t even look like he was going to take anything from that gallery, right?” She asked encouragingly. 

 

“Yeah.” Peter acquiesced. “He deserves a chance from me. I don’t know if I’ll see him again though. The last times that we’ve been face to face, I feel like he’s been in control of that. I don’t even know where to find him, other than at June’s. Diana staked out the place for a few days for me and she says he’s barely even there.”

 

“Well then, it looks like you’ll have to wait until he’s ready.” Elizabeth concluded. “If he hasn’t done anything to warrant a nationwide manhunt,” she teased, “then maybe you should leave him be for now. It looks like he’s started a new chapter of his life and wants to establish himself in it before he starts to dig up the past. Let it _go_ , hon.”

 

“You’re right,” Peter said, nodding decisively, “of course you are, you're always right. What on earth would I do without you?”

 

“Starve, I’d say.” She joked back, smiling for him as she always did, brightening up his bad days.

 

“I’d say so too,” he murmured, tipping her chin up for a quick kiss to her upturned mouth.

 

* * *

 

_So weapons deal guy and Dürer guy are the same_ , Eggsy snapchatted him from what looked like Guatemala. 

 

“Well, that’s helpful,” Moz commented from over his shoulder, peeking jealously at the pretty scenery that the agent was currently surrounded by. He also casually snatched Neal’s phone, sending back a snapchat of the New York skyline, asking whether Eggsy was alright. 

 

Not even five seconds later, another snapchat came in. It was a selfie of Eggsy, looking tired to the bone and face sweaty and smeared in what looked like dirt. 

 

Mozzie whistled, “Someone looks like they’ve had a rough day.” Neal rolled his eyes and took his phone back, sending off his own snapchat scolding his mentor for overdoing the assignment and telling him to _sit back and wait for evac for the love of all things holy_.

 

He got a cheeky smirk and two-finger salute from the back of a cargo plane in reply.

 

* * *

 

“Yeah, this is _definitely_ the guy who fenced that Dürer,” Neal said. 

 

“Great, now all we need to do is track down his _entire_ Manhattan network and we’re golden.” Mozzie replied sarcastically, fingers moving at the speed of light as he followed Alphonso Araullo’s money trail from server to server. 

 

Neal chuckled. “I know we can do it, Moz. There’s no better team than us, especially when it comes to fenced, stolen art.”

 

“ _Tracking_ fenced, stolen art.” His friend corrected morosely. “I wish _we_  could be fencing some stolen art…” He reminisced, though Neal could tell from his tone that he’d much rather be at Kingsman, helping out a band of absolutely insane secret non-government agents, although he would never admit it out loud. Not even for a Manet.

 

They worked in silence for awhile, other than the constant keyboard clacking from Moz and the occasional sigh from Neal as he flipped through a giant PDF of every known fence to Kingsman in the tri-state area. Suffice to say, it was _quite_ extensive.

 

“Aha!” Neal jerked in his chair from the sudden, raucous exclamation. “What an amateur! Who only puts money through _three_ accounts?” Mozzie scoffed, sending in a quick picture of the account and name registered to Merlin through his Kingsman-improved glasses.

 

“Christ, Moz. Don’t be so loud.” Neal breathed. “ _Definitely_ not used to that.”

 

“Oh, suck it up. Have you got the fence?”

 

“Narrowed it down to three guys- Guy Selbourne, Ingrid Nielsen and Travis Antyer. They work together and cover Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn- one borough each. There are other partners who do the Bronx and Staten Island, but that Dürer wasn’t transported through there at any time.”

 

“So,” Mozzie extrapolated, “if we can find the guy who sold the Dürer in their little network, then we might be able to get who did that weapons deal since the fingerprints on both of them apparently match.”

 

“Damn straight. I can’t believe someone’s erased their entire identity from all of everyone’s servers.” Neal sighed. “Gives us a hell of a lot more work to do.”

 

“Maybe he didn’t exist in the first place.” Mozzie suggested. “If he was an orphan who was never registered or in Witness Protection and had his entire identity erased before he went off and did whatever.”

 

“True. Now we just gotta find this guy and see who on Earth decided to buy an illegal missile from him.”

 

“I call not telling Revere about the under-the-table M16 Carbine deal he had along with it.”

 

“Oh _damn_ , I completely forgot about that! He’s gonna be _pissed_!”

 

Neal cackled. “Wait! That means _you_ have to tell Merlin!” Mozzie exclaimed, cutting off his friend mid-laugh.

 

A gasp. “Is it too late to switch?”

 

“They can write us matching eulogies, don't worry.”

 

"Well  _fuck_."


	9. diana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, naughty language, a recurring oc, diana's general badassery etc etc

Luckily, Merlin wasn’t _too_ mad and only broke four vases as opposed to his usual nine-and-three-quarters. Revere took the news calmly, shrugged and went with the flow of things, adjusting his giant system of operations to account for the small new factor and continuing to go about his day like a true professional.

 

Of course, he later took out his frustrations on an unfortunate Massachusetts in the fitness room, sparking up a new round of rumours about how the US’ current head of tech was fought vigorously over by the Merlin department and the field agency, being the proverbial prodigal son for both. And well, the moral of _that_ story was that Merlin would always get his way. Full stop.

 

It worked out for everyone anyway, since Revere _really, really_ liked to yell at agents without any backlash other than artisan chocolate and occasionally send everyone spinning with his mad sparring skills. It was probably a good thing the man wasn’t allowed into the field, in hindsight.

 

* * *

 

Work was, of course, ever-demanding and Neal didn’t think he’d be so excited to be on a plane to London, but he actually was. Everything lately had been pretty stressful- aside from that one assignment from Ector that he totally aced- and constantly looking over his shoulder during recon missions with an irrational paranoia that Peter would somehow show up was currently a huge problem. 

 

London represented getting away for a little while, and even though he knew he was there for work and would undoubtedly get worked harder than Revere could even think to work him, it was still relieving somehow.

 

Maybe it was just seeing Eggsy and Merlin again. Being able to see his mentors right now would make it all worth it. 

 

Sleep sounded like a pretty good idea too.

 

* * *

 

He was pretty grateful to be in a Kingsman jet, instead of in economy on freaking British Airways. It didn’t just mean getting some decent food, it also meant that he wouldn't have to be landing in a public airport; he’d be right there on Kingsman’s landing strip right outside the estate. Oh it was good to be relatively high-ranking.

 

“Neal!” A joyful voice caterwauled the second he stepped out of the Gulfstream. 

 

“Eggsy?” He asked unnecessarily, because _of course_ it was Eggsy. For one, how could he have expected anything else?- and for twos, who else in the agency had both Merlin _and_ Arthur so wrapped around their little finger that they’d both let him off to greet some random American agent? The answer to both was quite obvious; not even Lancelot had Arthur so pliant to her requests and her smile was known to be the downfall of most of Kingsman’s marks. And if somehow they weren’t really affected by the female persuasion, then they were most certainly floored by Galahad’s. They were like the honeypot king and queen, although thank the Lord that they didn’t get very many of _those_ or else the rest of the agents might’ve exploded in laughter; Eggsy was also known to pull the most ridiculous things on honeypots and the marks were known lap it right up.

 

Neal was greeted by that infamous megawatt smile… and a tattered Kingsman suit.

 

“What the hell happened to _you_?” Was the first thing he blurted out to the young blonde.

 

The very-mature field agent pouted. “Is that what I get for coming to say hello?”

 

“What the _hell_ happened to you?” Neal repeated. He had no idea that a bulletproof suit could look so… bullet-ridden.

 

“Just some technical difficulties.” Eggsy shrugged it off, winking at Neal conspicuously since they both knew Merlin would lost his shit at _technical difficulties_. Neal chuckled, shaking his head fondly at his errant sponsor. “You just love pushing Merlin’s buttons, don’t you?”

 

Eggsy laughed, “It’s all in good fun, Merlin loves me.” 

 

“Damn right, or he would’ve remotely exploded your signet ring already.”

 

“No way!” Eggsy’s eyes widened in equal measures of wonder and terror. “You lot can actually _do_ that?”

 

* * *

 

Work was… well, still stressful, but more fun too. Explosions were seen much more regularly, both in the field via glasses transmission and also on a floor below, in Merlin’s baby- the R&D sector, aka the _R_ in _Merlin_ department.

 

Not-yet-stable prototypes were abundant and also strewn everywhere throughout the five floors that the handlers called home. Neal had even started counting the number of times that something on his desk had exploded since he arrived three days ago. It was eight and going up by the hour, for the record.

 

Eggsy was fun as always, with witty quips in Qatar, nothing but cheekiness in the middle of the Australian bush and amusingly impossible curses in the Arctic tundra. And of course, even though Neal had 24/7 access to Eggsy’s glasses feed, the agent still felt the need to send him a snap at least thrice an hour. Even if it meant an update on whether he’d taken a shit or not.

 

Sometimes, Neal couldn’t believe that _that_ was his mentor. 

 

Merlin wasn’t too much better though, as much as he liked to play the _mature adult_ card. His favourite pastime was blowing things up and when high-grade explosives weren’t on hand, he _loved_ to anonymously prank the recruits. It was only when Neal became Merlin’s trainee that he found out where all of his socks went. For the record, they were apparently _donated_ to a worthy cause: the R &D department’s slow-going improvement of Kingsman’s waste system. He didn’t even want to know what that implied about the state of his socks, but…

 

And also for the record, the experiments that were inflicted on his poor, fluffy foot-warmers didn’t actually pay off. Dindrane, the head of R&D, wrote him an apology card for the loss of his socks and sent him flowers, which was nice. More importantly though, Merlin didn’t and was still completely unrepentant to this day, the bastard.

 

_Caaaannn you feel the looooove toniiiiight_ , came in from _eggsybenedict_ , accompanied by a rather striking photo of a desolate mountain peak and a pouting Eggsy Unwin. 

 

_Do I really have to climb this?_ , arrived three seconds later. 

 

Neal sent back a succinct _yes_ and revelled in the seven-second reply video that consisted solely of Eggsy whining into his mic.

 

* * *

 

The flight back was quite sad, mostly because Eggsy was on mostly-radio-silence on a mission to East Timor and couldn’t contact Neal at all to see him off, for fear that his position could be given away. Ironically, the only person that Neal would even accept a send-off from was Merlin, and Merlin was under a heavier workload than usual, so he couldn’t make it out from Ground Level 5 _and_ was the only person allowed to contact Eggsy to boot.

 

So Neal made his lonesome way out to the landing strip for takeoff and resigned himself to snapchatting his every move to Eggsy for him to look over upon his arrival back from his stupid radio silence in _East-freaking-Timor_.

 

At least he got a consolation snapchat from _roxytocin_ , who was on a _non_ -radio-silent mission to Ecuador and cheekily typed him a _wish u were here_.

 

Neal sent an unamused emoji back and received a laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying one in return. He didn’t dare send anything back that could even be considered _remotely_ offensive though. Lancelot still terrified him even though there was like a zero-point-zero-zero-zero-one percent chance of ever having to work with her in the next five years. Training really left its marks. Neal still had no idea how Eggsy could be so comfortable with Merlin.

 

Maybe it was just another side effect of the whole saving-the-world-together thing.

 

* * *

 

Nine hours later, he was… _definitely_ not ready to take standing up, much less the high energy of New York City. Actually, a nice nap sounded like a really, really good idea. 

 

There were beds at HQ... right?

 

* * *

 

“You better be ready to take on our underground drug ring at twenty-one-hundred hours, Prescott.”

 

“ _Yes_ , Revere.” 

 

“Sleep it up, kiddo. You’re gonna need it.”

 

He let out an agony-filled groan in reply.

 

* * *

 

So it turned out that ten hours really was enough sleep and high-stakes poker really was his jam, Neal thought smugly. He sauntered around, pretending to apathetically scan the room for what looked like a good game. “Right. So, where should I be?” He murmured to Sophia, not giving anything away except the infinitesimal movement of his mouth.

 

“The target’s at the fourth table to your right. Maybe you should play around a bit, before approaching him to ease suspicion. If I recall correctly, the first table to your left is just about to deal in. If you go now, you can nab a spot.”

 

Neal nodded his head a little, making sure that no one but Soph would be able to catch the movement.

 

And there was… oh wait _damn_ , it was Diana. 

 

What on God’s good earth was she doing here? Neal groaned inwardly. There would be no escaping her tonight. 

 

“Do you recognise that woman, Prescott?” Sophia demanded when she saw his line of vision centre on her for a few seconds too long. “Blink for yes, don’t blink for no.” Neal blinked slowly. “Well fuck. Will she compromise the operation? Do you need to be pulled?”

 

He turned thirty degrees to his left and pulled out his cellphone, texting a quick _she won’t if i don’t- don’t pull the op_ to Mozzie, knowing that he’d forward it directly to Soph. There was a sigh that came through his comms unit and Neal smiled with closed lips, knowing that Sophia got the text and wouldn’t cut the operation, but she’d be watching closely for any signs that Diana gave off that indicated she was blowing his cover.

 

“Right then. Better get over there. Think you can beat her in a game? She looks like a bitch. She’s smirking at you.” Soph commented cattily. Neal forced down a smile, knowing that he couldn’t give anything away either, or Diana would be on him like a lioness after her prey. 

 

Not that she’d catch him, but well. Neal would prefer to just  _not_ , thank you very much.

 

“Room for one more?” He asked the dealer in a low voice, knowing that it would give him an aura of authority and command. At least NLP training was good for something, he thought absentmindedly. The dealer nodded immediately, motioning to the one empty chair and deftly sliding him a hand of cards.

 

Texas Hold’em was easy enough, if you knew what you were doing. Neal won mostly, but lost a few as to not look too suspicious and to curry some good favour. Diana was decent enough at the game, but she was pretty obviously outclassed by most of the men at the table. Peter was probably gritting his teeth at underestimating the underground of New York. And probably also at Neal accidentally busting in on one more of his ops; Diana probably sent him a message in Morse code or something complicated like that.

 

Neal ended up winning the last hand at the table and he got a few _good games_ from some guys afterwards. He turned up the corners of his mouth in satisfaction, knowing that giving away a few rounds was worth it to get the goodwill of some of these people. You never knew when the smallest thing would end up saving your life- he, of all people, would know. 

 

“Watch your back, Caffrey.” Diana’s rough whisper came from behind him and she put on a sweet smile, pretending that she was congratulating him on a well-played game like everyone else.

 

Neal bared his teeth in reply, more snarl than smile. “I don’t think it’s you I should be watching out for, Diana.”

 

She looked pretty impressed. “Cat’s got claws, Neal. Didn’t expect that from you.”

 

“There are a lot of things you won’t expect from me.” He countered breezily, leaning down to whisper in her ear where her pen/recorder couldn’t pick up the sound. “Now here’s the deal. I don’t blow your op, you don’t blow mine. I know a hell of a lot more about how you’re going about your business than you know about how I’m going about my own, so we both know I have the upper hand here. Are we agreed on this?”  


 

“Oh brute force, Scotty!” Sophia cheered. “You go girl!”

 

Neal rolled his eyes from outside Diana’s line of vision and Soph just chuckled. 

 

“Fine.” She said curtly, pulling away with her jaw set. “But you even give a sign of giving us away and I’ll have your hide.”

 

“You’ll get nothing from me. I don’t care about what you’re doing here as long as you stay _out_ of my way.”

 

“…I think we have a deal then, Caffrey.”

 

“Good.”

 

Sophia hurrahed from HQ.

 


	10. snake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: deviation from canon, un-beta'd, use of foul language, some squick-y topics (trafficking, mafia/drug cartels) and the spontaneous introduction of a USHQ...

“Alright alright alright,” Neal drawled into his mic in a cheap impersonation of Matthew McConnaughey. It elicited the desired reaction though because a second later, Ector’s laugh came through the comms. 

 

“So you’re gonna want to take the red line up to Charles de Gaulle and then make your exit there. There should be enough people around to get rid of the guy fast.” Neal said sharply as his fingers worked frantically to systematically shut off the security cameras along the French metro and simultaneously order a convenient cab to drive up at the second exit just at Ector’s predicted arrival time to conveniently slide into so the agent could get ferried straight to Paris HQ. Somehow he just _knew_ that this extraction would go along like clockwork; Ector would be safe in Paris and it would all be due to Neal’s work a thousand miles away in New York. It felt like he was part of something _powerful_ but still overwhelmingly _good_ ; like he could do anything he set his mind to and the sky was the limit. 

 

It wasn’t a bad feeling to have, as far as feelings went. The warm and fuzzy feeling just after he was one of the people involved in saving someone’s life just barely one-upped that one though.

 

“Phew, success!” Ector panted into his comms unit just after he made a spectacular nosedive into the back of a Kingsman taxicab masquerading as one of the typical Parisian ones. It was also quite spectacular that Kingsman somehow owned entire fleets of refurbished cabs from pretty much every country ever.

 

Neal whooped in reply, giving his overworked fingers a good flex and stretching his wrists out. He plucked his glasses from beside his four mugs of coffee and slipped them on, standing up out of his chair to go for a good walk around the grounds before he got back to work on another one of Eggsy’s missions.

 

“Hey Ector, can you just switch over to our other frequency?” he leaned over to say one last thing in his desk-comm. “I’ll be on my glasses for your pre-debrief.”

 

“Right-o, mate. Switching over now.”

 

“Can you hear me?” Ector’s voice came in loud and clear through the tiny speaker in the frames of Neal’s glasses. 

 

“Perfectly,” he replied. “Can you hear me?”  


 

“Perfectly,” the agent echoed. “So how’s this new Cézanne?”

 

“I’ve heard he’s pretty relaxed if you’re on his good side.”

 

“And how-?”

 

“So, he doesn’t like people beating around the bush, long-winded speeches, excuses-.”

 

“ _So_ , he’s basically a second coming of Merlin?” Ector interrupted, completely serious.

 

“Exactly.” Neal acquiesced. “He’s like a French version of our Merlin.”

 

“Huh.” Ector said, voice rising temporarily in pitch. “No wonder Arthur hired him then.”

 

Neal barked a laugh. “Probably wants him to whip the French branch into proper shape.” Kingsman France had a reputation for being the most lax with its agents, letting them get away with just about anything. Chester King never really cared what they did during his term as Arthur, which was unfortunately a long one, so everyone knew Harry Hart had a _lot_ of work to do now that Kingsman was under his reign.

 

His first decision regarding the French roster was actually quite a good one. Paris HQ could probably use a Merlin-like individual. Only God knew what UKHQ would be like without the actual Merlin. Chaos, most likely.

 

“Right then.” Ector breathed, letting out a nervous sigh as his cab rolled to a stop in front of a charming little tailor shop in a quiet area just on the outskirts of Paris. “He can’t be worse than Scottish Merlin, can he?”

 

“Scottish Merlin also records all of our feeds, Ec.” Neal reminded the agent dutifully.

 

“Well _this_ is probably going to come up in our next Round Table meeting…”

 

"Awkward." Neal agreed amusedly.

 

* * *

 

Directing Eggsy around was always fun too, and even funner when they were both in New York. It meant his mentor literally had no other choice but to follow Neal’s directions since they both very well knew that Neal had a far better scope of the city out of the two of them.

 

“Alright, now take a right into the next side-street.”

 

“I feel like you’ve been purposely running me in circles.” Eggsy accused, panting lightly.

 

“Then it’s your fault for not keeping in top physical shape.” Neal replied unsympathetically, feeling particularly glad that he hadn’t passed through the Delaware trials in hindsight. Being Prescott was _much_ more satisfying anyways since he literally _was_ Big Brother nowadays, never-even-mind the FBI's primitive-in-comparison surveillance operations.

 

He knew Mozzie was feeling quite some satisfaction too, he’d long since shamelessly utilised his Kingsman resources to research his conspiracy theories and put them all to the test. Moz was pretty proud to inform Neal over dinner that approximately half of them were either true or _almost_ true. Neal had actually been suitably impressed; some of the things his friend thought up were pretty out-there and even if they were categorised as  _almost_ true...

 

“But I’m _trying_ ,” Eggsy whined playfully- they both knew that he was having no real trouble as Neal ran him through practically every square inch of the Manhattan area.

 

“Try harder.”

 

“Well Harry thinks-“ he started brattily and Neal knew he was about to say something that no one in the room neither wanted nor needed to know. There were just some things that an employee shouldn't know about his boss and this was probably going to be one of them. Plus, he very well couldn’t scar poor Morgana for life. She was supposed to have a resolutely _nice_ visit to USHQ, after all. 

 

“ _Right_ then, we’re putting the brakes on that.” Neal cut in almost frantically. He regretted the last time he let Eggsy finish a sentence that started with ‘well Harry + verb of choice’.

 

Eggsy chuckled in reply.

 

“Brat.” Neal commented fondly. And then continued to make the cheeky thing run in more circles around the Bronx instead.

 

* * *

 

He checked into the Round Table meeting via glasses from Conference Room 4 in New York. 

 

“Prescott’s here,” Merlin murmured, “we can start now, Arthur.”

 

“Right then,” Harry Hart announced, eyes lazily scanning through the faces that surrounded the actually-rectangular Round Table, “over the past few weeks, we have collected some important intelligence concerning the Serpenti, which as you all know, are a trafficking ring that we’ve been working on bringing down for _quite_ a while now.” He finished, subtly referencing the previous Arthur’s infamous failure to take down the elusive kingpins of the operation.

 

“So,” Merlin began, already swiping things around on his clipboard, “the Serpenti have been on our radar for a good, long time, as Arthur said. We’ve gathered information about their last few moves, and with some well-placed agents,” he nodded to Eggsy, “and some handlers from the American branch tracking communications,” he nodded to Neal, “we have successfully gotten an opening to knock down a few _very_ important kingpins. Galahad and Prescott will take you through the investigations that they’ve headed. The floor is yours, gentlemen.”

 

Eggsy stood up and cleared his throat nervously. Neal noticed Lancelot shooting him a reassuring look from across the table. “Um, right. So I’ve done a few assignments in Guatemala, China and Malaysia and Ector’s done some in the States and the Marshall Islands. The Serpenti have two established trafficking routes known to us and they’re from China into the States, and from Malaysia, also to the States. There’s been some suspicion that they also have a post in South America, which is why I did Guatemala, but that was never confirmed and I ended up chasing a mostly dead end. The other two routes are good to move in on, and the four that are at the helm have also had their itineraries confirmed and they’re converging for a meeting in two weeks. Prescott can fill you lot in on the thing in Guatemala though. Prescott?” Eggsy gestured for his protégé to get up, a hint of pride in his voice that made the last of Neal’s nerves settle as he prepared to speak in front of nine of probably the most deadly men he’d ever meet.

 

“Yeah, so my friend Mozzie and I ended up tracking a stolen Dürer around the world that was used to pay for some of the trafficking and to pay off debt. After some further research, we found out that the Serpenti are running low on funds and that the four heads of the ring; Bruno Terpoli, Yuri Takahashi, Brent Aldridge and José Vasques, are meeting in two weeks’ time in Rome. We would like to specifically inform you all that having all of these men in the same place at the same time is an _extremely_ rare event and recommend the utilisation of this opportunity. Mozzie and I can almost a hundred percent guarantee that something like this won’t pop up again in _years_. The contacts that we’ve consulted say that the last time this happened was when the Serpenti was formed, but it appears that desperate times call for desperate measures.” Neal nodded respectfully to the head of the table before he quickly undid the button of his jacket to retake his seat without destroying the line of his suit.

 

“Couldn’t have put it better myself.” Merlin praised him, taking back control of the room. Arthur nodded absentmindedly from his chair and flicked his eyes up to the files Merlin pulled up on the screen. 

 

“Arthur, the assignment allocations please?”

 

“Right,” Harry cleared his throat, “Percival and Ector, you’ll be on ground for this. Ector has already acquired an invitation to a small gathering that Bruno Terpoli,” he gestured to an image of the leader of the Serpenti onscreen, “will be holding in a week’s time. Percival will be serving double duty; eyes on Ector and elimination of the targets if the situation arises. Prescott and Merlin will co-handle the operation and Morgana will assign agents to do more reconnaissance.”

 

“We can never have too much information,” Merlin commented, swiping furiously at his tablet to give the agents a visual representation of their rosters.

 

Arthur continued, “Everyone else will be conducting missions as per usual, we’re devoting as much manpower as we can spare to the Serpenti. Galahad and Bors have volunteered to be on standby for this mission since they’re taking some mandatory psych days off. Any objections?” He asked, making eye contact with everyone around the table. “No? Wonderful. Merlin, anything else?”

 

“Nothing I can think of, sir. That’s it then, everyone dismissed.”

 

Neal tapped the frames of his glasses and signed off.

 

* * *

 

_Got to sit at the big kids table congrats_ , Eggsy sarcastically snapchatted him, boasting a head of sleep-rumpled hair after what was presumably a nap since it was three in the afternoon in London, that is, if Neal could do time differences as well as he thought he could. 

 

Neal sent back a snap of him rolling his eyes skyward, no caption needed. Eggsy sent him back a two-fingered salute and proceeded to call him via Kingsman’s private network.

 

“You know this could be cited as misuse of organisation resources?” Was Neal’s opening statement. 

 

“I’m dating the boss,” Eggsy countered jokingly, “but nah, Merlin loves me too much. Plus,” he added, “I was, in fact, going to talk shop with you for about… eh, thirty seconds.” He tapped his wrist absentmindedly. Neal rolled his eyes fondly. 

 

“Right then, thirty seconds. Go.” He said, still typing away at his station.

 

“Right then,” his mentor echoed him, “so Lance is on a thing in Benghazi and she texted me a few seconds ago cause she needs the travel logs of some diplomats and all the minions here are stretched thin. You got a minute?”

 

Neal made some unsure noises, doing some quick maths in his head to figure an estimate of how much work he’d have to make up, provided he spent exactly two-and-a-half minutes searching for the real travel logs. He had no allusions that at least a quarter of the diplomats he’d be asked to look up would’ve had their pilots fake some logs and throw some transmissions. After all, if Kingsman’d had the technology to do so ten years ago, then it was likely that _someone_ else would’ve pieced it together since then.

 

Oh wonderful, so he _did_ have the time.

 

“I’ve got two or so minutes. Send me your list?”

 

“On it.” A second later, a fourteen person list came up on Neal’s display from Galahad on a secure server. Neal proudly showed off his hacking and logic skills to his mentor as he jumped around some shady networks and made up algorithms on the spot to triangulate the true positions of Lancelot’s wayward diplomats at her specified times.

 

Exactly one minute and forty seven seconds later, he’d sent his information off to his terrifying trainer and Galahad profusely thanked him no less than eighteen times.

 

“It’s not a problem, Eggsy. _Really_.” Neal sighed, fondly exasperated. 

 

“You sure?” The senior agent asked, unleashing the sad-puppy eyes.

 

“ _I’m sure_ , you idiot. Now, what did you initially want to abuse our secret agency’s secure network for? By the way, your shop talk lasted _at least_ four times as long as thirty seconds.”

 

“Same difference.” Eggsy scoffed, once more at ease and snickering quietly. Neal rolled his eyes. Again.

 

* * *

 

_Oi you_ , Neal sent off to Merlin, feeling tired and not willing to use formal language.

 

_Never ‘oi you’ me again_ , came the sharp reply. _But what do you need?_ , the more gentle side of Merlin made its way to the forefront. Neal smiled exhaustedly.

 

_Write me in for the mid-morning tomorrow? Shreya said she could take my shift now and I’m about to fall asleep at the helm_ , Neal warned his sort-of boss. 

 

_On it. Get some sleep_ , Merlin ordered and logged off. Neal immediately saw his schedule change; leaving him with a free block from 0300 hours until 0900 hours. He prayed gratitude to the deity, read: wizard, responsible, made his way into his room at headquarters and clocked out.

 

* * *

 

Neal was awoken at five am to the loud blaring of the emergency communications network that was linked to his glasses.

 

“Fucking shi-“ He cursed, snapping upright and getting tangled in his sheets as he tried to scramble up, falling face-first onto the floor. He got up, sheets still wrapped haphazardly around his lower body, and fumbled for his glasses, finally managing to get them on his face. 

 

“What’s the problem?” He sighed, rubbing a hand over his nose and mouth wearily.

 

“The Serpenti have moved their little tête-à-tête up to this week, tomorrow. Get down to the conference rooms stat. Arthur’s ordered the construction of a new plan.” Merlin’s sharp tone came through and the loud clicking of his agitated keystrokes reached the microphone. Neal didn’t dare argue. “I’m on it.”

 

“Be there in fifteen. This one’s urgent, lad.”

 

“I’ll be there.”

 

The second that Merlin clicked off, Neal exploded into movement, already trying to get dressed and brush his teeth at simultaneously. He embarrassingly made another face-plant when he forgot that his sheets were still restricting his legs and made a mental note  _not_ to get drunk with Eggsy anytime soon or he'd be spilling the beans like a teenage girl at a slumber party.

 

* * *

 

“Made it,” Neal panted unnecessarily as he slid into his chair in the empty Conference Room 4, set up the hologram function on his glasses and immediately appeared in UKHQ in the guest spot.

 

“Welcome, Prescott.” Arthur’s calm tone came from his left. Neal turned his head and the man was standing at the head of the table, looking every part the dignified, benevolent leader looking down on his subjects. Or rather, in this case, his knights, wizard and American revolutionary. 

 

“We’re just waiting for Galahad,” Arthur informed them, a hint of amusement lacing through his tone. Neal and the other senior agents laughed a bit too; it seemed that purity wasn’t the only trait passed down through the line of the son of Lancelot.

 

Well, that was a little creepy though, since Eggsy’d originally made his way into the organisation as a competitor for the Lancelot position, but…

 

“Here!” His mentor burst through the doors of the main meeting room. He was sporting a rumpled suit, a hastily knotted tie and a bad case of bedhead. Neal glared at him for the blatant disrespect of a fine suit and Harry Hart looked on, disapprovingly fond, as his own protégé speed-walked to his place and sat down, a sheepish, shit-eating grin on his face. 

 

“Let’s get on with it, there’s not much time.” Merlin said, talking quickly as he always did when under extreme pressure. “The Serpenti have abruptly changed their meeting date from a week and a half till now, to tomorrow. No explanations, no notice; but we got wind of it from a deep-cover contact of ours that has infiltrated a sister organisation: the Caribbean Syndicate. He’s reported the meeting being moved since the leader of the Syndicate has bullied his way into attending after hearing about it. The gala is still going to happen on the same date, though Terpoli won’t be there. Ector and Percival will still be attending; it will look suspicious if they suddenly don’t attend right when the secret meeting’s been moved, and it will serve to provide some other connections and information into the alliances and rivals of the Serpenti. So far, none have really been forthcoming. Ector, Percival- I want you to treat this like a Tier 7 reconnaissance mission.” 

 

Neal raised his eyebrows in surprise. There were rarely ever any Tier 7 recon missions in all of Kingsman’s history; mostly recon was done in a Tier 1 through 5 level. Tier 7 meant that it would be dangerous, have potential to backfire and an uncertain extraction team. It wasn’t the most difficult mission that the other agents would ever go on, it was probably one of the breezy ones, in fact. It was just that most of the necessary information could always be accessed in an easier, safer way.

 

Both agents nodded their assent and Ector snuck a wink at Neal. He estimated that there would be a request for him as handler in the near future. Under the new Arthur’s rule, recon missions that were Tier 4 or above, and field missions that were Tier 10 or above would allow an agent to request a handler. It was a wise move on Harry Hart’s part; he, as Kingsman’s longest serving field agent, would know what it was like to have to put your life at the hands of someone with eyes everywhere else. He, for sure, would’ve gotten at least one or two handlers that got on his nerves and he felt like he couldn’t work with. The revision of the handler policy, Neal knew, was a revision met with enthusiasm and many, many gifts of various expensive liquors and chocolates to their Arthur. 

 

A wise move on more than one part, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wanted to get this out to you all before i took my sat and had to buckle down and start studying for semester exams xx


	11. saint columba

The next day, chaos reigned in Kingsman HQ across the globe. 

 

Rome HQ was jam-packed with frantic techies, even-more frantic agents and a pissy Merlin on their comms. Neal pitied them; adding a pissy Merlin to _any_ situation was pretty shit for the people involved. He knew from experience. 

 

Percival and Ector were due to arrive in Rome in the next fifteen minutes and a good half of the faculty there were preparing for their arrival. Percy needed a sniper rifle and something inconspicuous to put it in that also passed harmlessly through metal detectors. The Merlin department had been working casually on it, but when they found out it was an essential for the mission, everyone really started pitching in and a successful metal-detector-proof instrument case had been specially made for Percival along with a badass sniper rifle that doubled as a oboe. 

 

Ector got the standard glasses and a subdermal tracker just in case he got abducted or lost his glasses and suit jacket, both of which also held trackers. He took one of the poison pens for another possible assassination weapon of choice and a couple of smoke grenade lighters to cause a distraction if needed. In Rome, he’d be receiving some extra trackers to slip into others’ jackets, pockets or drinks if Merlin said the word. After all, there’d be much of the crime world attending this gala and a Kingsman was nothing if not well prepared for anything that could be asked of them. 

 

Ector, being the child that he was, was extremely excited to even fathom the thought of slipping something that could _track_ someone into their _drink_. Neal had endured an entire excited tirade when the agent got the news, and Merlin luckily took him off-duty on Ector’s side, most likely because he felt sorry for him. Percival was known for being _much_ calmer, and it wasn’t like he was projected to do a whole lot more than sit in position and wait to take his shot.

 

The man brought three knives, two handguns, pockets full of magazines and a zipline in case he got found out and would have to make a dramatic escape. Neal nearly shed a proud tear when he heard about Percy’s zipline; he was the one who taught the guy how to rig a line in under two minutes. Turned out that a life of crime could come in handy sometimes.

 

Mozzie was brought in on the case too, via Merlin’s recommendation. He was running analysis and recognition of people attending, so he manned the visuals from Ector’s glasses. Neal could see out of the corner of his eye that his friend was biding his time, hacking into Lady Cynthia’s mainframe and absentmindedly sending the information out to Merlin and the dossier department. 

 

“Stop hacking the poor rich lady’s network!” Neal teased him. “She hasn’t even appeared on our radar yet!”

 

Mozzie laughed but kept on copy-pasting files. “Oh _mon frère_ , I take it you haven’t heard what’s happening in a week’s time?”

 

  
“What, what’s happening in a week?”

 

“…”

 

“Moz! Come on, you gotta tell me!”

 

* * *

 

“Success!” Neal crowed, turning in his spinny chair to high-five Mozzie.

 

“Agent Percival, what is Ector’s status?”

 

“Clean kill made with no obvious suspicion planted on him. Appears to be retreating to his extraction point in the crowd.”

 

“Excellent. Percival, await extraction fourteen rooftops due southeast.”

 

“Roger, Prescott.” The sniper replied, packing up his rifle and slinging the bulky case onto his back as he jumped from roof to roof in the dead of night. “When are they due?”

 

“Hopefully I’ve just timed it so that they get there thirty seconds after you.” Neal replied, receiving an ETA from the car they had on standby for Percival. “Fifteen seconds actually, if you keep the pace up.”

 

“My thanks, Prescott.”

 

“Pleasure working with you, Percival. I’m switching you over to Merlin and Ector for debrief. Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight.”

 

Neal sighed contentedly for a job well done. A message came in not even twenty seconds later from Eggsy, congratulating him for an overwhelming success on his first large-scale Kingsman operation. 

 

 _Thx_ , he sent back, attaching along a tired picture of himself- hair completely messed up, bags under eyes, the whole deal.

 

Eggsy replied with a gentle, joking reprimand to stop being so vain and that he had that sexy just-got-out-of-bed look, that he was gay and for that reason, should be taking his advice. Neal sent off a question mark and a teary-laughing emoji. 

 

His mentor retaliated with a close-up picture of Arthur sleeping peacefully. 

 

 _EWWWWWWWWWWWWW_ , sent from _caffcott_ at 0347.

 

 _What a disgrace. I can’t believe any candidate of mine is such a child._ , sent from _eggsybenedict_ at 0948.

 

 _Coming from you_ , sent from _caffcott_ at 0349.

 

Eggsy didn’t bother deigning it with a reply. Neal let out a victory chuckle.

 

* * *

  

 _Quick meeting @1100 for ur timezone, be there_ , Lancelot snapchatted him right when he was about to go to sleep.

 

 _Will do_ , he quickly typed back before he tossed his phone onto his side table and fell onto his lovely, soft, feathery, heavenly bed and got a well-deserved sleep.

 

…only to be woken up by a harsh alarm coming from his glasses a mere six hours later.

 

“What?” Neal groaned, shoving the frames onto his face.

 

“Meeting in thirty, get ready, chop chop!” He should’ve known it was Eggsy. Curse the man for being able to sound so freaking _bright_ after the most exhausting mission of Neal’s life. He replied with an unintelligible grunt.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Eggsy said sympathetically, “we all feel like that after our first big fish, but you gotta suck it up; we need you for final debrief today.”

 

“M’coming.” He said grumpily, limping over to the bathroom.

 

“Good.” Eggsy said approvingly. “I’m getting off now, cause I know Merlin doesn’t mind seeing the agents piss, but I do. See you in thirty, Neal!”

 

“Bye.” He grunted, cutting off his glasses feed, unable to suppress a chuckle for his mentor’s usual bluntness or a tidal wave of paranoia for all the times he left his glasses on doing some weird crap. _What_ exactly had Merlin seen? 

 

Neal wouldn’t have been all too surprised if the man was the gossip queen of Kingsman with the sheer amount of agents' feeds at his disposal. 

 

* * *

 

 _Debriefing good/bad?_ , Mozzie had sent him ten minutes ago. Neal was mildly shocked by the text since his best friend rarely deigned to type out messages via cell phone, unless it was to agree on a face-to-face meeting place and even then, he usually liked to call instead.

 

 _It was ok_ , Neal wrote back. _Talk later?_

 

The only thing he got in response was a smiley face.

 

* * *

 

“So, the debriefing?” An absentminded Mozzie answered Neal’s call. He could detect the faint strains of an overworked keyboard in the background. 

 

“Mm, you working hard? Neal deflected, silently prodding at his friends’ well-being through the aforementioned overworked keyboard.

 

“Quite,” Mozzie replied succinctly, “but you’re not answering the question. How was the debriefing?”

 

“Not too bad, actually. Nervewracking, cause I had to give my full report in front of _every_ single senior agent _plus_ all of the ones working in Rome. And I’m a _hundred_ percent sure that Ector was laughing at me!” He added petulantly.

 

“Ector?” Moz not-so-sneakily inquired further. “You’ve mentioned him a few times now. Anything going on there?”

 

Neal rolled his eyes silently and decided to grace his friend with a verbal answer since he wasn’t there to appreciate the beauty that was Neal’s eye-roll. Mozzie had always wanted him to date someone in the same ‘world’ as them, for a better understanding and some other crap like that. “ _Nothing_ , Moz. Lay off a little, alright? We’ve just got in, let’s not get kicked out for fraternisation or misconduct or something along those lines.” He admonished, briefly thinking of his stint in the FBI. You could get booted for just about anything over there. 

 

“Okay, okay!” Mozzie said defensively. “I just want you to be happy, Neal.”

 

“I know,” he said softly, “thanks Moz.”

 

“No need to thank me,” his friend waved it off humbly, “I’m sure you want the same for me, so we’re even.”

 

“Plus all the wine.” Neal reminded him playfully.

 

“Plus all the wine.” Mozzie agreed.

 

* * *

 

“Hey you,” Merlin’s voice spontaneously came out of his monitor. “One of the blokes Ector made contact with during the gala is looking ‘round the market for a Seurat that Ector claimed to have as inheritance.” 

 

Neal, who knew better, said, “He’s not just saying that, he actually has one. _The Coming of Saint Columba_. Not by my favourite Impressionist, but it’s pretty alright.” 

 

There was an audible pause from the wizard. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that. “Right then,” he finally said, “it might be a touchy topic for you, but-“

 

“Yes, I can forge it.” Neal cut in with a mock-weary sigh. “I knew you only wanted me for my oils.”

 

“Well that’s that settled then.” Merlin replied dryly. “And actually, I quite liked your pastels.”

 

“Merlin, I knew you had _some_ kind of hidden motive in hiring me, you conniving little sleazeball!” Neal let out an unmanly indignant shriek. Merlin didn’t reply with anything but explode with laughter.

 

“Why, exactly is Merlin a ‘conniving little sleazeball’, as you put it? I’m afraid I wasn’t there for the punchline.” Arthur’s baritone suddenly came out of Merlin’s call line.

 

“Arthur!” Neal exclaimed in shock. He was pretty sure he could feel his cheeks going exponentially pinker at being caught in the act by the big boss who could make him feel irrationally undignified and idiotic. Plus, Merlin was still silently laughing at him, he was sure of it. Neal sent out a silent curse to his not-friend-anymore for leaving him high and dry in the face of sheer terror.

 

“I was… uh… oils. Pastels.” He blurted out, panicking twice as much as a normal person would; partially from pure embarrassment and partially from panicking that he was _actually showing embarrassment_. A proper con-man like himself should _not_ be showing embarrassment in any way, shape or form. He’d trained himself out of it a _long_ time ago; not even Peter could make him this flustered.

 

But then again, Peter Burke never gave off the same aura of power and quiet superiority that Hatry Hart did. It felt like the man was some kind of god in human form with the way that his agents spoke about him; coming back from the dead, longest serving field agent ever, still had the highest combat scores in the agency, even at fifty-six years old. The man was a legend already. Add that to the affable, modest, yet somehow incredibly lethal feeling he gave off, and _bam_ , if there was anyone that everyone would shake in their boots for, it would be him.

 

Merlin guffawed at Neal’s lame attempt at explanation and he could _feel_ the intense confusion from his boss’ boss. 

 

“Aw, lay off the poor man, Harry.” Eggsy’s dulcet tones appeared in the form of a mock-reprimand. “He and Merlin were probably just havin’ a laugh and there you are, ruining the fuckin’ moment.”

 

“My sincerest apologies, gentlemen.” Arthur said insincerely. Neal could hear the grin in his voice for Eggsy. 

 

“Gonna have to do better than that.” Merlin responded flatly, playing along. Neal made a choked sound of laughter.

 

There was a pause before another attempt came. “I am full of regret for the _devastation_ of my past actions. Will you _dear, kind_ souls absolve me of my all-encompassing guilt?”

 

“He curtsied, by the way.” Eggsy piped up, unsuccessfully stifling snickers. “You gotta be considerate of Neal-y, Harry, he can’t see you, after all.”

 

“My apologies, _Neal-y_.” Arthur murmured amusedly. 

 

“Well then... Prescott... think he’s done good enough?” Merlin asked, sniggering. Neal made another choked sound. He just _knew_ that Merlin would bring the not-really-pet-name back up in the near future. It was a dreaded moment.

 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the wizard interpreted smoothly. “Yes, yes, you barmy codger, guilt absolved! Now go off and do whatever-the-hell leaders of secret spy organisations do and _stay out o’ my floors_!”

 

“Of course, dear.” Arthur said sweetly.

 

“What an utter-,” Merlin muttered after his friend left the room with no real heat in his voice, “thinks he can just barge in ‘ere…”

 

"Oi, that's me boyfriend you're talkin' about, Merlin!"

 

"For the last time, Eggsy;  _I am not your_ boy _friend_ _!_ "

 

* * *

 

The next few days, Neal worked on forging _The Coming of Saint Columba_. It was by a Scottish Impressionist- which he got on Merlin’s case afterwards for not knowing about- but Neal was relatively unfamiliar with his work.

 

The first day, he spent researching about the man’s life and put most of his works- major or minor- in chronological order of starting date and then reorganised them according to their finished dates.

 

On the second day, he acquired some pictures of the painting itself, making a game-plan as for how he was going to go about recreating all of it, and printing back off magnified sections of the work that he knew he’d have to have some better reference points from. 

 

By the time the third day came around, Neal was a hundred percent ready to _finally_ start painting. It was a quick job- one that he got done in mere hours, only spending another half-hour to fix up all the details and make sure that he got all of the brushstrokes right. He put his reproduction in the oven to age a little, but not too much, since it’d been painted in the mid-1800’s anyways.

 

Now, all he had to do was pop it in a frame in a little while and he was done.

 

Forging had never felt so easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo, should i be seriously considering a slow burn ector/neal thing? cause rn i'm really feelin' that
> 
> after some thought, i've also decided that the rest of the story for a change in time won't be posted until i'm completely finished with it and that the first posting will be taken down and replaced with the entire thing upon completion, since i think it would be better to turn the second part of the series into little snippets of other characters' perspectives (since i know there are some people who've asked me for mozzie or merlin's point of view), scenes from a change in profession that i haven't been able to add in or alternate universes with neal and eggsy that have come up- just like what the current chapter is


	12. spice cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: un-beta'd, foul language, mentions of illegal activity, burgling an innocent piece of spice cake, etc...

The first person he showed was Eggsy.

 

“Shit bruv,” was the reaction he received, “I knew you were good, but…” Eggsy unconsciously ran a hand through his already-messy hair in astonishment. “ _Shit_ bruv.”

 

“You never looked through my past works?” Neal asked skeptically. “Come on.”

 

“Just a skim, ya know, to check you hadn’t murdered anyone or somethin’.” Eggsy replied teasingly. 

 

“You would’ve taken me in even if I had.” Neal responded knowingly.

 

“True that.” His mentor agreed, still drinking in his protégé’s masterful forgery with quick eyes. “This is fuckin’ great, Neal.”

 

“Thanks Eggsy.” Neal felt warmth blossom in his chest and a smile involuntarily made its way onto his face as he stared down at his work. He could kind of see what the agent liked so much about it. It was just… serene.

 

“Nothing but the truth.” Eggsy said without even a hint of joking in his voice. When Neal looked up, he was met with piercing blue eyes staring at him intensely. “You know that, don’t you?” Somehow, Neal figured that Eggsy didn’t want his question answered with a negative.

 

“Y-Yeah. Of course.”

 

“Good.”

 

There was a beat of silence between them. Neal could _feel_ his mentor practically fuming at his underrepresentation in the art world. Well not _exactly_ underrepresentation, since any curator or buyer worth their salt would know the name ‘Neal Caffrey’- under or over the table.

 

But yeah, Neal got what Eggsy was after. More warmth spread throughout his chest cavity when he thought about someone so inherently _good_ actually _caring_ about him, despite the fact that they met after he was a world-renowned criminal. Mozzie didn’t exactly count, since he was pretty much the cultivator of Neal’s reputation anyways.

 

“Better get this to Merlin, actually. He wanted it asap.”

 

“Mm. Better be quick.” Eggsy agreed, his tone indicating that he was still pretty out-of-it.

 

“Yeah. Merlin doesn’t like waiting.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey there, little guy.” Neal murmured to Matty. It was the first time he’d seen the much-bigger retriever in two days due to workload and Mozzie had agreed to dog-sitting duty.

 

“Finally come to take him off my hands?” His friend asked jokingly, even as he squeaked a toy to drag the dog’s attention from his owner to himself.

 

Neal grunted in affirmation, shooting Moz a mock-annoyed glare for successfully getting Matty to chase after a toy apple instead of showering Neal with affection. He whistled sharply as a signal to get his dog to come back. Immediately, Matty forgot all about the squeaky apple and came obediently to heel at his owner’s feet.

 

“At least _he_ follows my orders,” Neal grumbled, bending down to scratch between his retriever’s ears. The little thing preened and bent his head at the optimal angle to receive head-scratches from. 

 

“Had a mission with Massachusetts, I see.” Mozzie smirked knowingly, chewing smugly on his mouthful of carrot spice cake.

 

Neal grunted once again in reply, deigning to give the better part of his attention to the affectionate, squirming ball of fur on the floor. “Yeah. He was an asshole. _As usual._ ” He finally answered, sneering. 

 

Mozzie rolled his eyes and took a sip of a red wine with his cake. “Can’t always get what we want. ‘Sides, _you_ know Revere is short-staffed and _he’d_ have to be an idiot if he couldn’t see you two don’t get along! When the Merlin department gains a few more lackeys, I’m sure the asshole’ll be taken off your roster.”

 

Neal grumbled in agreement, still showering his lazy dog with affection. 

 

“How’s everything going with Sara, by the way? Didn’t you say you wanted to visit her last time you were in London…?” HIs friend commented off-handedly, casually taking another bite of his spice cake.

 

Neal lunged for it in revenge, Mozzie shrieking as he chased him down, forgetting about his stupid question altogether.

 

Not that Neal would even be thinking about Sara anyways.

 

* * *

 

The very next day, he got assigned Lancelot and Galahad- both of whom are getting shipped into Paraguay for a major human experimentation takedown. The small HQ in Argentina, one of the three minor stations in South America that Kingsman has, was still getting on its feet after the blows it suffered on V-Day. Since they were in no way capable of handling such a major assignment, the mission got shunted off to USHQ, and therefore Neal himself. Revere was being a bastard and flying into London that week, so the highly classified dossier, of course, gets tossed onto Prescott’s desk instead, with a sticky note reading _good luck_ taped on there in Revere’s unwieldy chicken-scratch.

 

Neal got a hasty debrief from Merlin as the two agents fly over the Atlantic Ocean and by the end of it, he feels semi-ready to take on Sebastian Castillion from behind the scenes.

 

At precisely 1100 hours, Neal turns on his comms, just as he was ordered in the dossier. Not even two seconds later, he can hear Galahad’s warbling come through.

 

“Hey Prescott, did you get that snapchat I sent you?” His mentor’s excited voice yelled in his ear. Neal casually turned down the volume of the transmission, hitting himself for not thinking about doing so earlier. He can practically _hear_ Lancelot’s eye-roll at her partner. “I don’t think Prescott has had enough _time_ to check his snapchat, Galahad.”

 

“Oh. Right.” Eggsy sounded dejected. “Well, you can go ahead and check it now! We have some time before we gotta get on Castillion’s arse.”

 

“No can do,” Neal finally got to put in his two cents, “ _I_ have to guide you to the safe house now. Merlin says he just got it finished and set up.”

 

“So _that’s_ why we weren’t getting one in the briefing. I was wondering…” Galahad mused. “Right then, Scotty! Lead the way!”

 

Neal rolled his eyes too. “ _Right then_. Galahad, Lancelot, exit the airport in quickly. The cab isn’t going to be waiting for too long or Marcel’ll have to take a tourist, let’s go!”

 

The two agents nodded sharply, their glasses feeds catching the movement before the pair started moving significantly quicker to the customs desks before the rest of the passengers did. They toted small, black suitcases that nearly tripped up a person or two on their way. Some close-to-perfect timing got Lancelot and Galahad into Marcel’s cab, carrying the two agents off the safe house that Merlin had arranged on the fly.

 

Eggsy whistled as they got to walk into the flat, impressed with the security in it. “It’d be near impossible to break into this place,” he commented, sounding like he had some experience in the matter. Neal knew he did.

 

“All you’d have to do is-“ he began teasingly. “Yeah yeah yeah, we get it. You can break into places,” Eggsy laughed, tutting mockingly at his protégé’s chosen skillset. They both knew it was an incredibly useful skill to have either way. Galahad _did_ have to break into safes and houses a couple times in his career, luckily having Neal in his ear for the last two attempts.

 

“Well _I’d_ like to know how to bypass the security system!” Lancelot protested. “Stop scolding your handler, Eggsy!”

 

Neal chuckled in return, drawing a sheepish look from Eggsy.

 

“Think you two can handle a couple hours downtime without me actively in? Sophia and I will jointly handle you guys on this; I’ll take Galahad and she’ll take Lancelot during combat. We can’t afford any distractions this time.”

 

“Sounds good to me.”

 

“Same. This is Lancelot out then.”

 

“Galahad out.”

 

* * *

 

Neal finally checked his snapchat after another hour of hacking into Castillion’s communications channels, making sure he didn’t know that he was about to be ambushed, was paranoid about being ambushed, had been hiring any extra thugs to keep him and his facility safe, or actually went about _moving_ his set-up in the past three months.

 

Satisfied that Castillion had _not_ in fact, been or done any of the above, Neal felt it necessary to take some downtime for himself. Eggsy’d sent him a quick snapchat just before takeoff with a plastic cup of orange juice, captioning the photo _la dolce vita_. He sighed exasperatedly at his goofy mentor, wondering if the man had any common sense at any time in his life.

  
Neal decided that he must’ve for at least a second or two; his choice of relationship partner couldn’t be a more responsible, level-headed man, even if his choice of candidate, namely Neal, was without-a-doubt burst of insanity and bad decision-making. 

 

Oh well. With the amount that Galahad and Arthur were sickeningly in love and likely to spend eternity with one another, Neal supposed that Eggsy should be allowed his complete lack of sense.

 

* * *

 

“Ready to work, partner?” Soph’s American accent washed over his ears. She took a seat at the set of screens beside Neal, logging on so that she could access Lancelot’s feeds.

 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Neal quipped back. “Be glad you don’t have to work with _Galahad_.” Eggsy had a reputation amongst the Merlin department for almost _never_ following orders.

 

She laughed, “Believe me, I am. Thank goodness Lancelot is _infinitely_ more agreeable.”

 

“And terrifying,” Neal muttered; half joking and half not. Sophia laughed some more.

 


	13. elizabeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: un-beta'd, some foul language, deviation-from-canon-and-slow-reentry-back-into-it, mentions of kidnapping

Neal woke up to find that Merlin had sent him a text in the middle of the night. It was the first time in two weeks that he’d had enough downtime to get some proper sleep after closing the Castillion case, and with great zeal, Neal had turned his push notifications on his glasses, tablet _and_ laptop on silent for seven hours of well-earned sleep. If there was any kind of emergency, he’d already assigned for his duties to be passed off onto Aneesh- a wonderful human being so full of technological miracles that Neal couldn’t help but call dibs on the guy as his second-in-command-for-the-second-in-command. It’d been a lucky day, since Revere was still half-asleep when Aneesh arrived and Dawes wasn’t even there- the guy was bedridden with a bad case of the flu after completely overdoing it the day before. Revere ended up having to put the man on lockdown and put a mandatory order to _leave_ on his head. 

 

He grudgingly shoved on his glasses and sent a call through to Aneesh.

 

“What gives, man?” Neal grumbled half-heartedly. 

 

“Sorry Prescott,” Aneesh snickered, “but the big boss wants to get through to you.”

 

“Yeah I noticed, just wanted to call you first to see if it was a fluke.” Neal sighed. “The bastard’s done it to me a few times before.”

 

“I heard,” Aneesh said with an air of sympathy, though he was probably just about to crack up internally. The strange relationship between their Prescott and Merlin was well-known throughout USHQ. “You did your handler training with him, didn’t you?"

 

“I did,” he affirmed, “and looks like he actually has a legit mission for me in the meantime. Think you can man my office for another few hours? I’ll call you once Merlin’s done with me and give you an update to whether I need you to take over for me or not.”

 

“Of course, sir.”

 

“Thanks buddy.” He hung up on Aneesh.

 

* * *

  

“Merlin,” Neal groaned, immediately speed-dialling Merlin after he got off with his second-in-command.

 

“Caffrey.” Merlin replied in kind.

 

“What do you want?” He yawned. 

 

“Aw is the wee babe still sleepy?” Merlin cooed in a sickly-sweet tone.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Alright lad, I’ll make it quick then.”

 

“Thanks,” he grumbled, wrapping his duvet around his cold, cold shoulders.

 

“You know your FBI bloke? Burke?”

 

Neal made a sleepy affirmative noise.

 

“We’ve just got wind that his wife’s been kidnapped by a Tom Keller. He was in your file somewhere and Lancelot thought the incident would be of interest to you.” Merlin said flatly. 

 

On the other end of the line, Neal shot up in bed. “Keller _what_?”

 

“Kidnapped your old FBI bloke’s wife.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Neal replied distractedly, “so what can we do about it?”

 

“Galahad thought if you wanted, you could lead a field mission. You’ve got the training for it and if you bring backup and let Galahad in your ear, I think Arthur’ll be easy enough to convince.”

 

There was a moment or three of silence. “Yes please.”

 

“Okay,” Merlin said in a softer voice, “we’ll get that prepped over here then. Get back to the main hub and Sophie can brief you.”

 

“Be right there then.” Neal said, feeling more jittery than he had in a long time; Elizabeth needed saving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. sorry it's so short guys, but i've just got done with my exams and i'm super duper tired rn


	14. retrieval

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: the usual + general badassery

“So, first time out in the field doing _agent stuff_?” Eggsy teased through the comms. It was an odd role-reversal situation. Neal almost wanted to be looking at things with a birds-eye-view that he knew Eggsy currently had; sitting behind a workstation back in UKHQ. 

 

“First time behind the desk doing _handler stuff_?” Neal jested back, knowing that it wasn’t the first time for either of them. Merlin never even would’ve let them out the starting gate if it had been. There was someone’s _life_ at stake and Kingsman most certainly didn’t joke around about that. 

 

Eggsy hummed in acknowledgement. “Hey, how the hell’d you and Merlin manage to get this past Harry anyways? I mean, I know you _know_ her, but like- there are also terrorist groups to take down.”

 

“Merl managed to convince Arthur it would get the FBI off our backs. Peter Burke’s been looking into us; he hasn’t gotten far, but Merlin’s still complaining 24/7 about how even two handlers spared to cover up all our tracks is still ‘two too many’.” Neal rolled his eyes.

  
“Ah,” Eggsy said, “well with all the terrorist groups…”

 

“There _are_  no serious terrorist threats right now, Galahad!”

 

“Exactly my point!” The agent cried. “Isn’t it suspicious?!”

 

“No!” Neal hissed back exasperatedly. These days, Eggsy was going stir-crazy from his recovery-period-slash-forced-leave and was trying to stir up a crazy conspiracy theory about some kind of evil mastermind’s plot getting concocted in, like, the Island of Tobi. “Shouldn’t we be thankful for the break we’re getting?”

 

“No!” Eggsy wailed back.

 

“Will you two _shut! Up!_ ” Merlin yelled from his comm. “I’m trying to retrieve some footage and you two wee idiots are giving me a headache!”

 

“…sorry Merlin.”

 

“Better be.”

 

* * *

 

It was an antsy waiting game in a Kingsman taxi driving around New York to basically nowhere yet. Neal could tell that the driver was slowly making his way out to the suburbs since Merlin had a rough idea of where Keller had taken Elizabeth, but it was a messy game- they only got bits and pieces of footage from surveillance cameras and roaming agents’ glasses to put together. All they knew was that Elizabeth had been taken through primarily suburban places; as if she’d been out and about in her neighbourhood and was taken from there to somewhere else nearby. 

 

“Sir I think we have a visual of Matthew Keller!” Field Agent 3216’s comm crackled to life and the view from his glasses showed a man coming out of a townhouse, walking fast with his head hunched a little too much to be casual. 

 

“Prescott, confirm?”

 

“Confirmed, Merlin. That’s Keller.” Neal muttered. “Where’s he at now?”

 

“Just coming off Madison Street. Jeong-ja can guide you over.”

 

“Got it.” Neal affirmed, abruptly taking a left turn as directed.

 

* * *

  

“Strike team’s in position. We’re going to be in and out of there, minimal fuss. If there’s anyone who poses a threat to the hostage, take them out. We’re not taking any chances here.” Merlin’s serious voice washed over there ears. 

 

“Yes sir,” came a chorus of low murmurs. 

 

“On my mark; …three… two… one… _now_.”

 

In that instant, a small explosive- cufflink version- managed to blast through the window, Neal forced open the door with some not-so-elegant lock-picking skills and slightly-more-elegant muy thai, and the two agents who first shouldered through the open window had signet ring-ed the watcher put on Elizabeth.

 

All in all, Neal would say the operation was going pretty well so far. 

 

He could hear Elizabeth putting up a fight with the agents in the other room, and when he identified the reason why there’d be a scuffle happening _after_ a rescue mission, he hurried into the main room as fast as he could. 

 

“-’t know what the hell you think _you’re_ doing with me! You’re sure as hell _not_ with the FBI; what’re you doing here?!”

 

“Ma’am,” F.A. 7035 sighed patiently, “all I can tell you is that we’re here for a-“

 

“Rescue operation!” Elizabeth cut in. “ _Yes_ , you’ve said so! Now _stop lying to_ \- Neal?”

 

“Now why on earth would Caleb be lying to me?” Neal snarked with his most charming smile.

 

“Neal?” Elizabeth repeated, looking like a deer in the headlights. “What are you doing here? Do you know these men?”

 

“Yeah, yeah I do. They’re good guys, El. We were gonna take you back to Peter, or FBI headquarters, if that’s okay?”

 

She nodded, still a little confused. “Sure, yeah, that’s fine. It’s good. But I thought you weren’t allowed in anymore. Peter didn’t say much about it, but he said you left. That you were gone now.”

 

Neal scratched the back of his head lightly. “I’m not working for the FBI anymore. But I got out through completely legal means.”

 

Elizabeth nodded again, deciding to trust him this time. Neal felt a rush of relief go through him. Things would be a lot easier if he and El were getting along. It would give him a few more points in Peter’s good books when they next faced each other.

 

Which would be in approximately… say, half an hour.

 

 _The less antagonism, the better_ , Neal reminded himself.

 

* * *

 

Diana and Jones burst onto scene with an entire SWAT team at their heels just as Neal was leading Kingsman’s impromptu debrief on small lawn in front of one of the neighbouring houses. 

 

He checked his watch innocently and quipped, “Only fifteen minutes late, less than I expected.” 

 

The female agent shot him an exasperated glare and Jones turned about thirty degrees just so Neal could catch his eye-roll. “We’re here for Elizabeth. Peter’s frantic at this point.”

 

“Good thing we did your job for you then.” F.A. 4529- a.k.a. Jon Reynolds- snarked. Neal could hear Merlin guffaw in his ear at the remark. Diana bristled at the perceived challenge, but Jones laid a hand on her arm, silently informing her that the men with cola and grilled cheese in their hands were probably more dangerous than they looked at the time. Neal commended him for the assessment. 

 

“So, are we allowed to take her back?” Jones asked politely, gesturing at Elizabeth where she was conversing with one of the agents that got her out and munching on half a turkey-and-cheese sandwich. 

 

The three agents in hearing range of Jones immediately turned to Neal, who was ranking agent on the case. He nodded. “Be my guest. We were just doing our good deed of the month.” 

 

“Ha-ha Caffrey,” Jones replied sarcastically, though there was an underlying tone of amusement in his voice. “We’ll go ahead and bring her back then. Peter’s still going out of his mind with worry…” he paused to parse what was coming through his comms unit, “…and he heard you, man. He wants to bring you in.”

 

Neal sighed resignedly. He knew this would happen. “Can my team go home though? I really don’t need everyone getting dragged into FBI headquarters. They’re good guys,” he reassured the FBI agents, “but I don’t think bringing in six men in black into the office and letting them off will do great things for you guys. Bad for image and all that.”

 

Diana shrugged. “Peter never said anything about them, just you.”

 

He nodded in return and signaled over his shoulder for everyone to get back to HQ. The agents promptly dispersed into some of the back-ways and roofs of New York as a preventative tailing measure. By that time, the SWAT team had Elizabeth in their clutches, so Diana gave the order to move out and back to the Bureau.


	15. contracted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: un-beta'd, barely proofread, SO MUCH PETER/NEAL TENSION (and not the good kind), unashamed creation of a USHQ as per usual...

It was oddly satisfying to be walking the familiar corridors of the Federal Bureau without having been arrested or forced into working with them. 

 

Now? Neal was here on his own terms- no strings attached. He could actually walk away whenever he wanted to and no one would be able to slap any charge on him. He could go anywhere he wanted afterwards and _no one_ \- not Peter, not Jones, not Diana- would ever be the wiser.

 

Except probably Merlin. And Aneesh, for that matter, since the kid was sitting in his office and had probably hacked into his monitor a good _five-gazillion_ years ago. Neal scoffed to himself. Sometimes that kid was too brilliant for his own good.

 

Anyways, he’d probably be back at HQ within the hour if everything went smoothly. He was only here to catch up a bit with Elizabeth and make sure she was alright. There wasn’t much reason to stick around for anything or any _one_ else. 

 

* * *

  

Diana ushered him into the ASAC’s office and Neal was greeted with the not-unwelcome sight of an uncomfortable Hughes.

 

Eggsy snickered in his ear after being silent for the better part of the last half hour. “Bets on a lecture, Prezzie?” Neal gritted his teeth, annoyed he couldn’t snap out a reply to his erstwhile mentor. Hughes would probably think he was going insane. Or that he had a piece of communications/surveillance equipment on him. Neal was pretty sure it was the latter that was worse. “Whaddaya say, old pal? Twenty quid, hm? I’ll take that silence as agreement. Twenty it is!” Eggsy cheered. 

 

Neal just barely refrained from rolling his eyes. 

 

“Caffrey.” Hughes finally stated.

 

“In the flesh.” Neal replied snarkily. “Care to get to the point? I’ve got things to do now, you know. I’m not _wallowing_ in misery now that the FBI’s ‘dropped me’.”

 

Hughes sighed, massaging his temple. “Don’t think I don’t know a Kingsman when I see one, Caffrey.”

 

“Great job, you can identify the agency I work with now. Go figure. What do you really want, _Reese_?” 

 

“Keller.” At this, the ASAC made direct eye-contact with him. “I want Keller. And I want him goddamned locked away for a good long time.”

 

Neal remained stubborn and prodded at the man even more. He wanted to hear Hughes say it. And more importantly, he needed Eggsy to get a record of it.

 

Hughes didn’t disappoint. “I want you in on the case, Caffrey. If we can’t manage to get him fully convicted of anything, we want Kingsman to make sure he won’t get to anyone else again.”

 

Eggsy made quick work of getting the news to Merlin and Arthur; both of who linked onto Eggsy and Neal’s channel and guided him through a reply.

 

“A written proposal, please, and we’ll consider it.” Neal dutifully demanded. Merlin made an approving noise in his ear, typing away distractedly on the other end of the line. 

 

“Nice, lad. Now tell him he’ll take who we give him and that there’s no guarantee he’ll get a senior agent for this.” Neal relayed the information smoothly and Hughes reluctantly nodded. “Just make sure we don’t get one wet behind the ears. Keller’s a high-profile case and under _no_ circumstances can anything get out about a murder linked to the FBI.”

 

Eggsy was outraged. “We don’t train up _amateurs_ , ta!” He scoffed offendedly. Merlin grunted his agreement and Arthur sent vibes of tense, silent disapproval towards Hughes through Neal’s comm. 

 

“No wonder we never work with your stupid American organisations. So full of themselves…” his mentor muttered petulantly. 

 

“Tell me about it,” Neal muttered back, uncaring now if Hughes knew about his comms unit. The important stuff was all said and recorded now, so there weren’t dire circumstances that Eggsy would need to pick up, Now that Neal knew that the FBI needed Kingsman too, he was pretty sure Hughes wouldn’t order a strip-search for violation of federal privacy or something of the sort. From their first meeting, Hughes could already tell that Neal was under the protection of the volatile, dangerous, flawlessly polite blonde gentleman under the moniker of Galahad. 

 

Galahads had always been known throughout the spy community for being both unerringly deadly and ruthless when pushed, so it was probably a wise decision on Hughes’ part. Especially since he had _two_ Galahads on his side. 

 

Plus a Merlin, who could most certainly make your life miserable in a long list of ways.

 

“Well,” Hughes coughed awkwardly, “you’re free to go then, Caffrey. Peter’s next door if you want to drop by…”

 

“Thanks Hughes. I’ll take my leave now.” Neal gave the man a brittle smile, ignoring the last thing he said. He didn’t need to see Peter _anytime_ soon… but, he reconsidered, Elizabeth would probably be in there anyways. Was his impulse to see her safe going to come first over his desire _not_ to see Peter?

 

* * *

 

It appeared so. Neal’s feet led him to Peter’s office door, where he could see El sitting with her back to him through the glass. Peter caught sight of him outside not even a half second after he came into view. A small smile lit Peter’s face and he gestured for Neal to come in, not willing to leave his wife’s side.

 

Neal let out an awkward greeting, eyes darting uncomfortably between the couple, both of whom were giving him their undivided attention. “Just came in to check on El, my guys’ll be happy to know she’s alright.”

 

El gave him a warm smile, “They were good men, Neal, I was glad to meet them. Let them know I’m doing well now and that I thank them for rescuing me.”

 

“I’ll tell them.” Neal replied, acutely aware that they were probably listening in through his glasses feed. By the ‘awwwww’s and the ‘anytime!’s that he was getting through his comms were any indication. 

 

“She’s got ‘em under some sort of spell, Caffrey- help!” Eggsy yelped cheerfully, Arthur chuckling in the background at his young agent’s antics. Neal grinned despite himself. 

 

“How’s it been for you, Neal? Haven’t seen you in awhile.” Peter started conversation in a warm, but cautious tone. Neal decided he’d return the favour since Peter seemed to be showing much less hostility than at their last meeting. Forgiving and forgetting wasn’t exactly Neal’s specialty, but perhaps for an old friend, he could.

 

“Not bad, actually,” he said breezily, still keeping a smile on his face, “I’ve got a lot of good people now and hopefully won’t be running into the law again.” He quipped with a wink. Peter chuckled at the effort and shook his head fondly. 

 

“I think you’re off our radar for good, Neal. Keep up the good work.” He clasped Neal’s shoulder in camaraderie. Neal fought down the irrational burst of annoyance he got at Peter’s words- he didn’t _need_ the man’s approval anymore, it wasn’t like if he did anything Peter didn’t like, they’d lock him away again. They’d been doing so well too.

 

It still wouldn’t do well to blow up in front of Elizabeth. Neal kept his calm. He’d be back home soon anyways.

 

“I should get going then. I’m glad you’re okay, Elizabeth. It was nice seeing you, Peter.” Neal said, quirking his lips up in an imitation of a smile that probably came out more as a grimace.

 

“You’re probably tired now, I’m really sorry we kept you for so long.” Elizabeth interpreted his look wrong, but he was glad for the concern nonetheless. His false smile turned into something more genuine. 

 

“It was no problem, just call anytime you need something. I’ll see what i can do.” Neal said gently to her, giving her a short hug.

 

Peter cleared his throat awkwardly. “It was good seeing you too, Neal.”

 

“Glad I could help.”

 

And he turned sharply on his heel, walking out of Bureau Headquarters for hopefully the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> super sorry for not posting in so long guys! i had a lot going on in the past two months- another SAT to take, my diploma programme really picking up the pace and consequently barely any time to write! :( 
> 
> i sped through writing this one and if anyone catches any errors or awkwardness in phrasing, please take to the comments and tell me so i can edit it! thanks so much guys for keeping up this long and hopefully i won't take as long next time! :)


	16. reinstallment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: just the usual + un-beta'd, barely proofread (sorry!) and the return of bors (yay!)

Eggsy hummed a wordless tune in Neal’s ear as he briskly stroke out of the FBI and into the busy streets of New York. He nimbly dodged around the hordes of people that milled around him, lost in the urgency of their own lives. The joke was on them anyways- no one ever noticed when a well-dressed man slipped into a shady-looking alleyway. 

 

Neal cleverly took a couple of twisty, narrow passageways to throw off any tail that Hughes deigned to put on him and doubled back a few more times before finally popping out in front of one of Kingsman’s lesser-known entry points. He stepped down into the subway and once again gave the NY general population the slip into one of the false maintenance tunnels. With a quick retina scan, signet ring identification and codename confirmation, he was back in headquarters. Eggsy had just finished belting out One Direction’s new song.

 

“Thanks for that, Galahad.” Neal said dryly, finally able to speak freely without any suspicion about who he was talking to. Not to mention why exactly he was talking to one of King Arthur’s knights.

 

“Anytime, Caffrey!” Eggsy replied cheekily, sniggering at the prospect of torturing his protégé’s ears again in the near future. Merlin grumbled almost-silently on the line, probably used to the young agent’s warbling, the poor man. For all that Merlin liked to mess with his agents, there were some times that Neal realised how much crap he had to put up with in return- it was pretty well-known that almost every field agent had _some_ kind of small, weird/affectionate way to annoy Merlin. It must all build up, Neal thought to himself.

 

It was the shit like this that made him think twice about being a handler.

 

In all truth, it was actually probably the _amazing_ amount of vacation time that were written into his contract that was the real tipping point. The agents’ antics would just have to become a part of life, he supposed grudgingly. 

 

Absentmindedly, he wondered whether Merlin got massages or something of the sort in his free time from all the stress he had to go through every day.

 

Then he sniggered at the thought of oh-so-serious Merlin with a mud mask and cucumber slices over his eyes.

 

Revere looked at him weirdly and Neal resolved to paint the man a small portrait of spa-day-Merlin for his birthday. Which was actually coming up quite soon. He waved a hand as if to say ‘don’t ask’ and continued on his way to debrief. Revere shook his head exasperatedly. Agents.

 

* * *

 

“Conference Room 7 is open, Prescott!” One of the assistants called. Neal nodded briefly to the man as he passed and firmly shut the door of the empty room, sitting himself down to begin debrief with UKHQ.

 

“Merlin, Arthur- you there?” He asked conversationally as the hologram “Round” Table flickered on.

 

“Present.” Arthur replied primly, sitting up straight and placing his hands in his lap. Merlin grunted in acknowledgement, paying more attention to his tablet and the many, many tabs open on it than to the two agents in front of him.

 

“Right then.” Neal said haltingly, impatiently waiting for Merlin to _look the hell up and give him attention goddammit_. Arthur snickered lightly behind a polite hand, unsuccessfully disguising it as a cough.

 

“Ah yes, here it is.” Merlin finally said. Neal was practically steaming at the ears, vibrating with energy. Arthur was flexing his jaw, trying to hold in a laugh. “Harry!” He looked up and started in surprise. “You’re early!”

 

“I am.” The man in question replied, completely straight-faced in the stare of the object of his amusement. 

 

“Why.”

 

“I just wanted to be there for young Prescott’s important-“

 

“Bullshite.” Merlin interrupted him unceremoniously.

 

“Eggsy made me.” Arthur gave up the game almost as soon as it had begun. Neal was amusedly disappointed he wouldn’t be able to see more banter between the two men. He knew they’d known each other for _ages_. Eggsy was always going on about how hilarious they were in board meetings.

 

“Anyways, back to you, lad!” Merlin said, tapping at his screen without even looking at it. The mission’s details and a draft of a contract to the FBI appeared in Neal’s HUD. “I’ve drawn up an agreement for Neal’s Bureau friends-“

 

“They’re not my _friends_.”

 

“-for the licence of an agent of our choosing.” Merlin continued, ever unflappable in the face of petulance. “I was thinking of nominating Prescott-“

 

“What! _No!_ ”

 

“-as he seems to know them best. Any agent they haven’t been in contact with could be a risk to the organisation and would allow the government bastards to gather more information on us. They seem to already have the dirt on the lad. Might as well throw him back out there.” Merlin gave him a dirty side-glance, as if the fact Neal had been sucked in by the FBI before was _entirely_ his fault. 

 

“It wasn’t my fault!” He objected fruitlessly. “What if I don’t wanna go?”

 

“Then I’ll send you for a term in Siberia instead.” Merlin replied.

 

“Why can’t you send Eggsy? He’s been FBI Headquarters before, right?”

 

“And then antagonised them.”

 

“But I’ve antagonised them too!”

 

“Great to know you acknowledge it, laddie!” Merlin said with sarcastic cheer. “And now you can go make amends!” 

 

It was Arthur’s turn to be entertained by the banter between Merlin and his ex-trainee. 

 

“But Merlin-!”

 

* * *

 

It was bad enough that he had to be back at the FBI for a requisite 15 hours per week, but he had to jump through the hoops of supplementary agent training too- since he hadn’t passed though recruit training and hadn’t really been doing the standard conditioning that agents typically did, they pretty much made him go through it all again.

 

‘Luckily’ enough for him, Bors the Glarer was somehow dropping by New York and ‘graciously’ accepted the position of whipping Neal back into shape. 

 

“Good _God_ you’re a shithead, Bors!” Neal complained with no real heat, panting after being forced to run a half marathon on the treadmill. Bors looked at him unsympathetically and maybe a tad amusedly too. 

 

“I think thirty press-ups will be satisfactory then, Prescott.”

 

Neal groaned. Looked like the world would be finding no sympathy for him anytime soon.

 


	17. samsara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: the usual + a wee bit of dangerously cute ector (imo)

Two weeks.

 

That’s how long it took for Bors to train Neal back up to his physical prime. _Two weeks_.

 

Two weeks of hell, of torture, of every embarrassing muscle pain known to man; Neal had seen it _all_. Bors really was a huge asshole. Eggsy had cackled the entire time, and Neal was more than ready to sock his mentor in the face. At least once. If he could actually get to him.

 

 _Which_ , was an infinitely more likely possibility after Bors’ _brutal_ combat re-training sessions. Of which Neal had endured fourteen of- one for every day of those fire-and-brimstone two weeks.

 

Merlin had complained no less than five-hundred-eighty-one times about Neal’s absence and Revere had made it known to Bors that he was _extremely_ displeased about being deprived of his second-in-command. So Bors sped up Neal’s training… and Neal just died all the faster, much to Eggsy’s amusement.

 

And now, he’d have to walk straight from Training Room 47 to FBI Headquarters.

 

Oh the joy.

 

* * *

  

Man, if there was anything he staunchly _didn’t_ miss about the FBI, it would have to be their coffee.

 

It was literal sludge. Neal had no other words in his rather extensive vocabulary for it, other than ‘torture’.

 

“Hughes can see you now.” Jones told him curtly, leading the way into Reese Hughes’ office. The man was looking pretty gaunt. Neal estimated he had, at most, five more years in service before he’d have to retire. It was probably going to be sooner rather than later, if he had to guess.

 

“Mr Caffrey.” Hughes said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

 

“If you prefer Prescott…” Neal suggested. It would probably be easier for him too, to work separately from ex-con Neal Caffrey on this project. It was bad enough he had to be back under the Bureau’s roof. And security cameras.

 

“Prescott then.” A noticeable amount of tension fell off Hughes’ shoulders. The man almost managed a professional smile, though it came out as more of a grimace. Neal probably had a similar expression on his face. He could feel Jones’ intensely inquisitive stare at his back.

 

“You’ll be working with Peter.” Hughes said. Neal resisted every urge to roll his eyes skyward. “And it’ll be a high-profile case. We’ve been wanting Keller for years, and now that we’ve got a promising lead, the brass is clamouring for his ass. You better get him this time.”

 

“I’ll do my best.” Neal said, making moves to stand up and leave.

 

“One more thing before you go, Prescott?” Hughes sighed. Neal raised an eyebrow. “ _Do_ try to get along, alright?”

 

Neal chose to give into temptation; he rolled his eyes. “Do my best.” He echoed himself cheekily. He could almost taste Hughes’ exasperation. At least it would be Merlin signing off all the damage reports, he thought smugly.

 

* * *

 

It was awkward.

 

Peter spent a good ten seconds just staring very seriously at him. Neal stared back. It wasn’t like he could do anything else, right?

 

“Caffrey.” He finally said shortly.

 

“Hello, Peter.” Neal replied pleasantly. “How are you today?”

 

“Fine, thank you.” Peter bit out, making it very clear he was displeased with pleasantries. Well, not that Neal hadn’t known that before. Not that Neal was doing anything to purposefully annoy his new-temporary-kind-of handler-but-not-really.

 

Of course not. Perish the thought. Neal smiled charmingly. Peter scowled.

 

“I’m guessing you know what you’re here for.” Peter said. Always straight to the point with him.

 

“Of course. For Keller.”

 

“Right you are.”

 

“So, what’ve you got on him so far?”

 

“Not much,” Peter admitted, “but we’ve got some of his most recent locations and his activity around the city.” Neal was surprised by how quickly the agent relaxed when they started talking shop. It was, he supposed, the one thing that he and Peter could agree on- it was one of the most important things in each of their lives.

 

That, and they both wanted to see Keller behind bars. Whether they be the government’s or Kingsman’s, Neal really didn’t care.

 

“Alright.” Neal said, rubbing his palms together excitedly. “Let’s do this. I can’t wait to catch him.”

 

“Same here,” Peter sighed, running a hand through his short hair. All of a sudden, the dark circles under his eyes stood out ten times more. Neal felt a niggle of concern, but quickly brushed it aside; if Peter wanted to work himself to death, then far be it from Neal to deny him.

 

* * *

 

“That actually… went well?” Peter confessed confusedly.

 

El chuckled. “Of course it did, hon. It’s you. And Neal.”

 

“Yeah,” Peter said, “but it’s _me_. And _Neal_. I still don’t know if I can trust him or not. He’s just so… slippery, you know? I don’t think he’s my biggest fan either.” He sighed frustratedly. “I don’t even know anymore, El.”

 

She sighed with him. “I think if Reese says you can trust him, you should.”

 

“And what about you?”

 

“Oh hon, I’ve always trusted him. He has a good heart.”

 

“Well, I’ve been deferring to your judgement years now, El. I don’t think you can lead me wrong.”

 

“Then give him a chance, Peter.”

 

  
“I will, I will.”

 

“I’ll believe it when I see it, hon.”

 

* * *

 

“Augh,” Neal groaned upon his return to June’s loft, and therefore, her heavenly sofa. He immediately collapsed on top of it.

 

“What’s happened?” She asked him concernedly, pouring them tea in delicate flower-patterned porcelain.

 

“ _Peter_ ,” Neal complained, “ _Peter_ happened.”

 

“Oh, that agent of yours?” She replied, making a moue into her teacup as she sipped.

 

“He’s not _my_ agent.” Neal offered a token protest, crossly sipping his tea as well. After all, indignation was no excuse for bad table manners.

 

“Well, you’re working with him again, aren’t you?” June’s sardonic eyebrow made an appearance.

 

“Well,” Neal echoed, “yeah.”

 

She didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply, instead deciding to pointedly look away from Neal and sip calmly.

 

* * *

 

Ector called him later that night as he’d just gotten into a comfortable position to sleep.

 

“ _What_ , Alex?” Neal whined, jamming his glasses onto his face, nearly stabbing his eye out in the process. “I was literally just about to fall asleep.”

 

Xander snickered unrepentantly. “That’s what you get for early sleeping habits, Prescott.”

 

“The sass!” Neal exclaimed, pantomiming a stab to the heart that went unappreciated since he hadn’t chosen to hologram himself. “I just stabbed my heart out, by the way.” He added.

 

“Nice to know.” Xander deadpanned.

 

“Besides!” Neal burst out. “I was just tired from today, that’s all. It’s not like I make a thing out of going to bed at like-,” he checked the clock, “nine-thirty.”

 

“Whatever you say,” his friend replied teasingly. “Anyways! I was going to ask you about your day, actually, before you rudely interrupted me.” “Hey!” Neal interrupted. “There you go again,” Xander sighed in mock-exasperation. “Before I was cut off,” he said pointedly. Neal made some quiet grumbles. “I was _going_ to ask you about your nine-to-five with Burke the Jerk?”

 

Neal groaned again. “Don’t get me _started_ , Ec!”

 

Xander laughed brightly. “How the hell are you laughing at this time of night?” Neal complained.

 

“I’m in eastern Russia right now, kid.” Ector said amusedly.

 

“Oh. Right.” Neal said dimly. He could vaguely remember something about that coming up in their last table meeting.

 

“You sure you’re alright?” Ector asked, concerned.

 

“Yeah, nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix.” Neal reassured him.

 

“Alright then,” he said. Neal could hear the disbelief in his voice but was glad he didn’t get called out on it. “I better not keep you.”

 

“Night.” Neal grunted.

 

“Goodnight,” Ector said gently.

 

Then, Neal went out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for waiting so long, guys


End file.
